Some manufacturers of drum vacs will not mention drum crushing. This is either because their units don't have the power to do it or they would just rather not mention it. We take a different view. Our drum vacs are powerful enough to crush drums, we do it regularly when building and testing them so we understand it intimately. So please read the following so you also get an understanding of it.

The crushing of drums is not dangerous, just inconvenient. With the higher powered units from 160 cfm to 260 cfm drums can collapse if the proper pre-cautions are not taken. Drums sould be re-inforced with these high powered units that deliver 18"Hg and above. A standard heavy gauge drum is called a 16 gauge steel drum. These are the strongest standard drum in the market. Their crush level is about 16.5"Hg. This means that in the normal operation of a drum vac, the drum will not crush and you will never notice any issues. However, if your drum vac is a high powered one that develops more than 16.5"Hg and you have an air blockage then the drum could collapse. It will happen in the blink of an eye and the drum will contort like the picture below.There is no explosion as it is an implosion. It may give you a fright but it is not dangerous. As the Super Box Thruster is a 4-5mm steel construction it will not be damaged as it will lift up if the drum crushes. It has been designed in such a way with the under lid leg assembly to protect the filters and blast tubes when the unit is placed on the ground and also when a drum may collapse under extreme power.

What makes a drum crush?

Generally it is because the air flow has been blocked. The following are common causes of drum crushing;

• blocking the air flow of the suction hose with your hand to see how powerful it is 
• sucking up rags or plastic bags
• burying the suction hose or wand into a pile of powder, sand or waste that prevents air flow
• Putting the suction hose or wand into a drum of fluid before turning the vacuum on and the air flow starts

The simplest way to re-inforce a drum (and the cheapest) is to get a standard open top drum lock band and hack saw off the lever and the locking catches. This will leave the lock band with about a 50mm (2") gap from end to end. This allows the band to be squeezed in and the circumference reduced thereby allowing the band to be pushed into the bottom sauge of a drum. Repeating this process to the top sauge of the drum will give the drum the strength required to prevent collapse.

Once the lock band has had the lever and locking catches removed then push the adjusted lock band inside the drum to the bottom sauge and then repeat with the top sauge. This is the quickest, cheapest and most effective way to re-inforce your steel drums.