Introduction: Reusable Dustbag for Vacuumcleaner
As the vacuumcleaners dustbag fills up it get's slower and slower until it's finaly useless. Dustbags tend to be expensive, single use and at any time the manufacturer could decide to stop making yours, that is if the store still sells them.
Enter the resuable dustbag. It's made from an old T-shirt, a zipper, some vinyl and the piece of board from an original dustbag.
Slight update : This instructable got picked up on Hackaday. I'm so happy! :-)
Step 1: What You'll Need
You'll need ..
a T-shirt or other piece of sufficiently drafty material
a zipper
a peice of soft vinyl, rubber or suchlike
sciscors
sewingmachine or needle and thread
a dustbag that works with your machine
Step 2: Get It Right ..
Cut a piece of the T-shirt big enough to wrap around the old bag.
We'll be using this to sew up a bag sorta like it.
Step 3: Add Zip ..
Sew the zipper onto the fabric so it will close up nicely.
Step 4: Add Vinyl ..
Cut a hole in the vinyl big enough to catch the hose, see original bag.
Add the piece of vinyl to the fabric and sew it on.
Sew up the bag, don't worry about excess fabric, that can be cut away later.
Step 5: Fittings ..
Add the piece of board from the bag (or whatever it is that makes it fit) over the hole in the vinyl.
I managed to sew it on but maybe you will have to glue it on or something, just make sure it's on there.
Don't forget to cut a hole in the bag underneath aswell.
Step 6: Fit It in the Machine ..
Make sure the bag fits inside the machine and everything.
Mine worked first try.
Step 7: Success!!!!
Behold! It's collected the testscraps on my bench. I'm a genius. Now to make a robot slave that can use a vacuumcleaner on the floors and tidy up that mess.
Step 8: Updates
091109I noticed it's over a year since I made this and since I emptied the bag yesterday all I can say is that it's still working great. Haven't had any problems since I made this and never needed to buy another bag.101115I seem to check in on this every year :) The bag is still working well and I haven't noticed any problems with the vacuum cleaner so that's two years on the same bag. Take that, proprietary bags!130520Final update. The vacuum is dead but the bag still works :)
13 Comments
8 years ago on Introduction
Excellent. I'm a broke college student living alone in my first apartment, so this is really good for me because my neighbor gave me an old (1990's) japanese-market vacuum cleaner, and either the bags aren't made anymore, or they're not sold even on english language websites. I've emptied the paper bag a few times and it's starting to wear out. I'm thinking I'll try this tomorrow, because it's labor day and I have the day off of work and school.
8 years ago on Introduction
Excellent idea, I was looking for a reusable dust bag vacuum cleaner but most of them come with paper bags, and those are not so cheap to replace, anyway I would make mine out of two micro fiber wipes, because those wash fast and dry real fast, I like the zipper, with it there's no separate parts from the bag wich could get lost, but I would put in a longer zipper in an U form so that the bag could be turn out flat, and I dont like the paper part at all, because of it you cant wash the bag, and that's not good at all, maybe some thin sheet of plastic would be a good replacement, it could be glued to the bag, theres no big difference as log as it holds, if I'll make it, I will post some photos, thanks for sharing
Reply 8 years ago on Introduction
I know it's been a while, but as an option you could always find some really heavy interfacing at the fabric store.
8 years ago on Introduction
One heck of an idea!
Simple & great!
11 years ago on Introduction
How about Velcro in place of the zipper?
14 years ago on Introduction
Nice idea, though you might get leakage from the zip as it wouldn't be sealed unless you add an inner flap over the zip inside the bag... :) Or, you could buy one of them bag top slides used on old Hoover or similar bags, which seals the bag just with a fold or two... :) Personally though, I have shake-out bags for my older Kirby vacuums, and Kirby still sell all the different disposable bags they have used since they started using them (Paper, Micro Filtration, HEPA and HEPAII), so I can still use those, plus they're huge bags so last for a good long time... :)
Reply 14 years ago on Introduction
I thought about flaps abd so when I made it but decided against it. Haven't had any such problems though. Good idea about the bag top slides, I'll keep in mind if I ever see one.
Reply 14 years ago on Introduction
There's plenty for sale on eBay, just search for "vacuum bag slide" or "Hoover bag slide", loads of them, all aftermarket replacements of course, rather than genuine brand named ones... :)
14 years ago on Introduction
I made one years ago from nonwoven interfacing, and it was great. We now have a bagless vacuum with washable filters, so I no longer need such a thing, but I am glad to see that you had the same idea and have made an instructable :)
Reply 14 years ago on Introduction
Thanx :)
14 years ago on Introduction
I've been using this for a while now and it works great. Emptied the bag from a ball of dust and hair as big as your head today.
15 years ago on Introduction
Great idea I've always thought it was stupid to just throw the bag away. I might try this with the original bag since it seems pretty sturdy
Reply 15 years ago on Introduction
Yeah, I've had bags that I ordered with some sort of filtermaterial that seemed sturdy enough. Try it .. it can't make the problem worse.