It works so much better than the plain pipe (and plain pipe was better than the big gulp box thing).
Someone did point out that I have reduced my pipe from 4″ down to 3″. I may someday have to get bigger PVC. But this is working just fine, so it may never change.
I sanded this piece (from the bottom tenon up to that pencil line) from 120 up to 400. You can see the dust on the banjo that the dust collector didn’t catch. The rest went in the pipe.
I discovered that 3″ PVC pipe couplers are the same size as 4″ dust collector hose.
I cut a length of 3″ pipe, added a coupler and am using that rather than the large hood I had been using.
I think the pipe collects sanding dust better. Also, since the pipe is longer than the hood is, the stand can be farther back and out of the way. I was always bumping it with the banjo and had to walk around the lathe to move it around.
I added a pipe clamp to the stand where the two vertical sections slide together for height adjustment, so it will stay at the correct height but can rotate. Now I can just swing the pipe out of the way without having to move the stand around.