The Woodpecker blast gates are wafers so there is force pulling on the entire wafer.  In order for it to open, the vacuum would have to pull on just the top half or bottom half of the wafer.  Basically, the same force trying to open the wafer is also trying to close it.   

I haven't had a chance to try the planer out yet to see if the wire takes care of the static build up.  Same with the lathe.  I still need to sharpen my lathe tools before I can play with the lathe.

Pottz - according to Oneida, the Supercell isn't as sensitive to the pressure loss from 90 EL's as regular dust collectors.  It pulls much higher vacuum than a standard DC.  The key to the higher vacuum are 3 small high vacuum motors in parrallel rather than one large fan with high volume and minimal differential pressure.  There is  new version has 25% more suction which means it can probably suck the chrome off your bumper.  Nathan might have bought it??