Convert a vacuum cleaner motor into an air blower.

For:
Leaf blowing
Hair drying
Bernoulli ball tricks
Fire blowing
Flame throwing (to be added later)
And more probably...

Step 1: Parts List

One redundant vacuum cleaner
One aluminium lamp shade
Nuts and bolts
3-core mains cable
Resin for glass-fibre
A T-shirt
Epoxy glue
Assorted screws
A drill
Heavy ring-pulls
Bag-straps
Various ad-hoc bits and pieces

Step 2: The Clockwork

The vac' broke.
The front-end beater & brush assembly failed and the drive-belt snapped.
The vac was replaced.
So I had a spare electric air-pump. The machine was deigned for sucking, the blow just went to waste. Trying to block-up the exhaust vents and divert the output wasn't much good because the case was leaky. Also I'd got a big redundant bag-space and handle.
I took the whole thing apart and stripped out the essentials.
I'm not going to tell you how to take a vac' apart any more than: use a screwdriver and break things.
So I extracted the motor and fan unit, plus the TRIAC speed control, on-off switch and the variable resistor which links into the TRIAC.

Step 3: The Motor

(View picture)
The motor sucks air in the back, and vents it out the front.
Depending upon your perspectve, this either cools the motor or heats the air.
It's a friction-fit, with a rubber band. I needed a new case, and after a few weeks patience found the aluminium lampshade.
I've added 90' angle-brackets to space the motor from the metal-case, but there's still the friction-fit.
The motor was bulked-up with double-sided foam pads and tape, finished with the original rubber band.
A tight-fit, requiring much pushing and finger-work but just right.

Step 4: Rear-end Casing

The friction-fit worked, and the motor could be securely crammed into the aluminium case.
But I needed an ad-hoc air-filter and somewhere to mount the controls.
Mirroring the front-end, I made a resin case using the aluminium shell as a mould / former.
A piece of T-shirt was wrapped and soaked in resin, using the minimum of hardener. This meant that the shell took a long time to set, but remained fairly soft for peeling-away. If I'd used more hardener to produce a crispier-shell it may well have cracked when peeling-off. One hacksaw cut and a blunt knife removed this quite easily (looks nasty because I added tissue to absorb stickyness)
The shell was re-applied to the lamp-shade and a T-shirt sleeve added over the top, more resin, more hardener = hard shell
A bit of cutting and sanding and I had something nice

For the air-filter I used the other sleeve, gathered-up and secured in place with more resin. folding the seams over gives strength.
I am certain that I took photos of the air filter, but I can't seem to find them. Hope you're smart enough to work it out from what's here...

Step 5: Electrics

I mounted all the electrics on the resin shell, a bit of drilling and screwing and they were assembled nicely.
I used the two terminal block connectors to secure the variable resistor, and backed-up with some epoxy glue
This was to some extent a trial and error business with trials of a lot of screws.
(see annotated pictures)

Step 6: Final Assembly

The mains cable is already in place, but beforehand I fashioned an earth connector for the aluminium case. This is to obviate anyone pointing to risks of electrocution, because If I thought that the shell would become live I wouldn't have built it in this way (it shouldn't be necessary, just a precaution)
I've also sprayed the case with metallic paint
The resin rear-end portion is a simple friction-fit, and required a fair-amount of whacking to force on. Still it's not going to come off easily...

Step 7: Done

A few bag-straps, and you're in business.
Here I've attached the original vac' tube, but I have plans for a flame-thrower...

I tried photos with this on me, but they didn't show it off as well as this one.