BORK - Dust Collecting Blade Cover (DCBC) (Rating: 4)
I ordered the Dust Collecting Blade Cover (DCBC) sold by Bob Ross from The BORK Store. I think this is a fairly new product from Bob as he literally designed it to my specifications. His original design called for a 2-1/4" hose but that size of hose is hard to connect to a fixed dust collector. I asked him if he could make it to fit 2-1/2" hose and that I was planning on mounting it to 2" sch40 PVC pipe. One other thing that Bob did for me was to make the arms a little long so that I could have a little wiggle room in the mounting. Bob sends you the DCBC, bracket with all the hardware, a tie wrap to secure the hose and a few extra washers and nuts for "droppers."
The DCBC is well made and made entirely from clear polycarbonate. The mounting bracket is all walnut, custom made to fit my 2" PVC pipe. The dust collection tube on the DCBC came off when I was fitting everything up. No big deal, I just epoxied back on, good as new.
You have to come up with your own mounting system. I used 2" PVC pipe because 2-1/2" hose fits over it nicely. I also made made my mounting arm pivot so that I could lift it up out of the way when not needed and the 1/8 wire rope doubles as a guy wire to prevent it from sagging.
It's been a couple of weeks now since I got the DCBC and I wanted a chance to get to know it a little before I reviewed it. Overall I'm well pleased with it. It still doesn't collect all of the overhead dust like I had hoped for but it does get a lot of it. I may still need to move the DCBC a little closer to the front as I think this may help.
One thing that I did find out is that it works a lot better when you're ripping wider rips. That is to say that it doesn't collect the overhead dust when you do a "skim cut." The dust seems to kick out to the side. Again, moving the DCBC forward may help with this.
The DCBC is rather large so there is deffinately a "getting used to it period" involved. I had to rethink my hole push stick collection as getting in around the DCBC on thin cuts takes a different set of push sticks. I rip up to about 2" wide cuts comfortably with the DCBC in place. Anything smaller than that, I have to raise it up and get it out of the way.
One last thing, Bob provides a knob that you can tighten that holds the DCBC up off of the table. I only mention this because it took me some time to figure out why in the world there was a knob only there. I highly suggest that if you've considered something like this, shoot Bob an email. He certainly can help.
I ordered the Dust Collecting Blade Cover (DCBC) sold by Bob Ross from The BORK Store. I think this is a fairly new product from Bob as he literally designed it to my specifications. His original design called for a 2-1/4" hose but that size of hose is hard to connect to a fixed dust collector. I asked him if he could make it to fit 2-1/2" hose and that I was planning on mounting it to 2" sch40 PVC pipe. One other thing that Bob did for me was to make the arms a little long so that I could have a little wiggle room in the mounting. Bob sends you the DCBC, bracket with all the hardware, a tie wrap to secure the hose and a few extra washers and nuts for "droppers."
The DCBC is well made and made entirely from clear polycarbonate. The mounting bracket is all walnut, custom made to fit my 2" PVC pipe. The dust collection tube on the DCBC came off when I was fitting everything up. No big deal, I just epoxied back on, good as new.
You have to come up with your own mounting system. I used 2" PVC pipe because 2-1/2" hose fits over it nicely. I also made made my mounting arm pivot so that I could lift it up out of the way when not needed and the 1/8 wire rope doubles as a guy wire to prevent it from sagging.
It's been a couple of weeks now since I got the DCBC and I wanted a chance to get to know it a little before I reviewed it. Overall I'm well pleased with it. It still doesn't collect all of the overhead dust like I had hoped for but it does get a lot of it. I may still need to move the DCBC a little closer to the front as I think this may help.
One thing that I did find out is that it works a lot better when you're ripping wider rips. That is to say that it doesn't collect the overhead dust when you do a "skim cut." The dust seems to kick out to the side. Again, moving the DCBC forward may help with this.
The DCBC is rather large so there is deffinately a "getting used to it period" involved. I had to rethink my hole push stick collection as getting in around the DCBC on thin cuts takes a different set of push sticks. I rip up to about 2" wide cuts comfortably with the DCBC in place. Anything smaller than that, I have to raise it up and get it out of the way.
One last thing, Bob provides a knob that you can tighten that holds the DCBC up off of the table. I only mention this because it took me some time to figure out why in the world there was a knob only there. I highly suggest that if you've considered something like this, shoot Bob an email. He certainly can help.