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Dust Collection
Before I really started woodworking I thought sawdust was kind
of cool. Piles of it on the floor meant that I was really doing something
with my hands, something that was a bit foreign to a guy that spent all his time
on computers and his education. Also, the smell of it was great.
Being immersed in sawdust was a novelty that I enjoyed.
Soon after that, it became clear that I needed
dust collection. My nose was getting clogged with sawdust and I was
starting to cough. Bill
Pentz's site about dust collection made me aware of just how harmful saw
dust is. Until I knew better, I always thought that since saw dust is
natural it can't be too bad for you. It is bad, it's about as bad as
smoking cigarettes. It causes cancer, emphysema, and all sort of other respiratory
(lung) diseases. Dust collection is important. Just like smoking,
some people can do it for years without any noticeable impact. Others run
into trouble right away. In an odd way, I'm glad I noticed the impact
quickly. The alternative could be going on for years breathing fine until
you learn you have cancer.
My system works well, it catches most of the dust that my
machines create. I can really tell the difference between 4" and 6" hose.
I ran 6" fixed pipe and some 6" flex hose but in most cases, I reduce to 4"
right before I get to the machine. I do that because the machines come
with 4" DC adapters and I simply haven't bothered to build something better.
In many cases, the 4" hose works fine because the dust is easy to
collect. For example, the planer and the router table throw the dust/chips
right toward the dust collection hose. In cases like that it's not hard
to collect the dust. The toughest challenge in my shop is the table saw.
The table saw throws the dust right toward the user. I do my best to get
around this be splitting the 6" pipe to dual 4" hoses that suck above and below the
saw blade. This works fairly well but to catch 100% of the dust I
probably need something stronger than my Jet 1200. It would take a
hardcore 3 HP+ system to really reverse the sawdust in mid-air and pull it back
down. As it stands now, my system is better than most and way
better than nothing but it's not perfect.
| I built the shelf for the dust collector so
that I could store things underneath it. It's work out well except
that it's a pain to spin the "handlebars" that unclog the
pleats. I need to fabricate an extension of some kind to solve the
problem. I currently either stand on the outfeed table or use a
light bulb changing extension pole. : |
Here you can see ductwork right off of the dust
collector. The 6" black flex hose goes to the downdraft section
of my outfeed table. The
flex hose with the black blast gate (second from the DC) goes to the
Unisaw's cabinet. The other is normally attached to the overhead guard but
I switch it to the jointer or planer when I'm using them.
Finally, the ductwork heading towards the ceiling is headed across the
garage to the router table and
floor sweep.
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| This picture doesn't show it but the 6" pipe is reduced to
4" to accommodate the 4" hose that fits the bandsaw. According to me,
the bandsaw isn't too bad with regards to generating dust. It tends to
pull it straight down into the cabinet and even with a 4" hose, my dust
collector cleans it like the day it was new. I used two corner fittings to
reduce the sharpness of the turn and I used red duct tape to seal all of the
joints.
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This picture shows the overhead pipe
running to the router table. It also shows the floor sweep I made with
a HVAC fitting. The floor sweep sucks well but it doesn't quite touch
the ground in front, which stinks. That fact and its location is
enough of a problem that I tend to just use a dust pan instead. I
didn't use a normal floor sweep because I didn't want a 4" fitting.
Maybe between projects I'll get around to improving it in some way. The
dust collection on the router table is really great. It helps that the
dust is thrown right at the dust collection in the fence but I can see the
down draft doing its job too.
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| Just another shot of the HVAC pipe
running around the shop. HVAC pipe is easy to work with, cheap, and it
functions well. However, it's far louder than PVC pipe. When I
build my dream shop one of my lessons learned is to use PVC.
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This picture is a bit out of date,
the jointer is on the other side of the table saw now. However, it
does show the downdraft portion of the outfeed table.
This shows it even better but it's from before I set up the DC system.
The downdraft table hardly worked when I connected it with 4" flex hose.
I had put so much effort into it that I was pretty bummed out when it didn't
perform. I upgraded to 6" hose and the difference was huge. 6" hose gives about
twice the flow of 4" hose.
The table doesn't catch everything, I can
still sometimes see dust on the smooth portion of outfeed table.
However, I can see the dust being pulled into the table. I can sand
for hours and the shop doesn't fill up with a dusty haze. I can still
breathe easy when I'm at the downdraft table. I'd have to guess it
catches 95% (or better) of the dust. I'm glad to have this table.
I use it when I'm sanding, routing, and sometime when I'm just sweeping up
the shop to aid the air filter.
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| This is a picture of the dust collection in the back.
Because I put the wye fitting is inserted directly in the table if I remove
the hoses it can fit closer to the wall. Also, I used a larger fitting
than Norm did. Finally, when I built this I had the idea that a short
4" hose wouldn't restrict the air as much as a long 4" hose. Since
then I've learned that while that true, "short" is should be something like
2", not 3'.
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