blast gate

Works good.

Spring Blast Gate

Not a bad product even though it's foreign made. Too bad items like these can't be found here. I always have to tear these apart and smooth out all the rough edges before I can get them to work to my satisfaction.

blastgate

Working just great just like they are supposed to. I now have 8 of them.

4

No problem with installation. After using them for about a month I have three issues with this particular blast gate design. First, the locking knob, which has to be left loose most of the time to let the gate slide in and out without resistance, will invariably unscrew itself due to shop tool vibration and fall to the floor. I don't particularly want to tighten and loosen the knob every time I want to close or open the gate, respectively. But if you loosen it just a little to just barely enable the gate to slide, the screw at the end of the locking knob will score and possibly deform the soft metal gate. I plan to use something similar to "Lock Tite" to increase the thread friction for each knob. Second, the gate's sliding panel itself is too loose in the slot cut between the front and back (or top and bottom) halves of the blast gate assembly. This means the sliding panel can "rattle" a bit in the slot resulting in suction losses at each blast gate in the system that I would prefer not to have. I replaced plastic blast gates that didn't open fully with these metal ones that do open fully, but because of the suction losses (basically leakage) I still may not be getting the best possible performance from my dust collection system. Third, it's possible to open the blast gate and not have the notch in the side of the sliding panel fully engaged with the open-position pin in the blast gate assembly casting. Shop tool vibration will eventually cause the gate to slam shut under the spring tension when you don't expect it to. And you may not hear it close either with shop noise levels and hearing protection devices in place. There's no problem if you take the time to verify that the notch is fully engaged with the pin before you turn on the machinery and are not in a hurry. I also found that the setting of the locking knob mentioned above is also a factor in how easy or difficult it is to get the notch to fully engage with the pin. However, I'm still glad I made the change.