The Case of the Reverse Air Flow

By Doug Palinkas

I purchased a five-gallon Craftsman Shop Vac a number of years ago to use to clean up my home garage workshop. Would you believe the exhaust air was blown straight down from two ports on either side of the tank? Guess what, all the dust and debris I wanted to suck up from the floor was blasted into the atmosphere. I was dumfounded at this very bad design. I ended up fabricating a couple of deflectors from a 1/16 inch thick sheet of aluminum and attached them to deflect the exhaust air sideways. Problem solved.