When you've drilled the holes it is time to bend the flaps. After drilling clean the sharps edges and excess material away with a Dremel and a round needle file. Once you marked them clamp the metal into a drill press and drill out the holes.

This would also be an appropriate time to mark where you will need to bend the pieces. (I did this by the very scientific and precise method of holding them up to the container with the plexiglass in place.) Then mark the hole locations on the metal pieces. First if your pieces of metal need holes figure out where you want them. The way it worked out one was already bent, the second had holes the exact size of my pop rivets and the third had neither. After I verified the size of the plexiglass I dug out three pieces of heavy duty scrap metal to make the metal flaps. Then I placed it on top of the container to verify it was the correct size. Then I went to the local hardware store and they cut a piece of 1/4' plexiglass to the dimensions I needed. The first step in building the top is getting the plexiglass. Instead of a wood frame I decided to use some metal flaps that just bent up over the plexiglass while it rested on the top of the container. (I told Mike if I won I'd buy him one of those Craftsman automatic hammer things). A new perspective can give you great ideas. At this point I declared him a genius and asked 'Why the hell didn't I think of that?' This is why discussing ideas with others is a wonderful thing. That way the plexiglass could just be slid in and out as needed. He suggested I just make a wood frame with a grove cut in it to serve as a track. I was describing this idea to my buddy Mike at lunch one day and commented that I would just have to drill out the rivets if the plexiglass ever became too scarred by flying debris (e.g. Then I would attach it to the container with rivets. Originally I had planned to get a piece of plexiglass and sand it down to fit inside the container. Product placement will probably not sway the judges, but it can't hurt. A note: I'm entering this in the Craftsman contest so there will be blatant ass-kissing shots of the Craftsman tools I used for this project. I went with this method as I am a sloppy cutter. The downside being that it would be messy to use it in a passive mode as dust would be more likely to escape.

This would allow air to flow in along multiple paths and requires no specialized openings. 2) You could allow spaces around the various penetrations into the system. This would allow you to also use the system in a passive mode if your vacuum was unavailable. You can allow for air flow in one of two ways: 1) You can build a specialized opening that allows air to enter while the rest of the unit is air-tight. Lack of incoming air could damage the motor of your vacuum. If you build an active system you need the unit to allow air to flow in so your vacuum can work. If you build a passive version of this project you want it to be air-tight so that dust won't escape. The box will contain the dust and flying debris so I won't have to wear a dust mask or safety goggles. Crap!) Aside from containing dust there is the added benefit of not having to use as much safety gear. (And I just saw that someone had suggested adding a vacuum attachment and the plexiglass top piece incorporated into my project. My system incorporates a Shop-Vac to actively draw in the dust, instead of only containing it. In doing a quick search of Instructables I found Rachel had made a passive dust collection system very similar to my idea. I briefly considered using my Dremel for this, but I decided it would kick up too much dust and make a mess of the shop. While making my Promethian Fire Egg I needed to make a divet in some concrete.

Dust collection system