Tablesaw and Dust Collection question

Hi Chunky, (can I call you Chunky?)

I don’t know if it is more work than it is worth but I recently read an article (in Fine Woodworking I believe) that showed exactly how to do that to improve dust collection.

I think I have the magazine at home. I bought it just because of that article. I still plan to do that to my Craftsman contractor’s saw.

I will find it and get it the info to you one way or another.

Take care.

Jerry

-- Professional kitchen designer, amature woodworker.

If you could let me know what VOL No. it is, that would be awesome.

Everyone on the forums calls me Chunky. Everyone that knows me personally calls me Chunk. Only my enemies call me late for dinner!

Chunk

-- Chunk

Hey Chunky( beats being called Fatty!): One of my saws is an old 1985 Crapsman contractor that I re-built years ago. It’s a cutting dude, and dead-on accurate. But I had the same problem(as a lot of us do/ did). Belt drive, motor hanging out the back, etc. I took a piece of stiff drawing paper, looked at and measured all the openings in the back, drew it out, and made a 1/4” plywood cover for it, allowing for motor tilt, etc. Sealed it up with a.c.&h tape( the silver stickey-backed type), and got rid of 80-90% of my dust problem out the back. You might try that and see if it helps. Quick, homemade fixes are usually the best. Hope this helps.

-- Remember--- one good turn-- gets most of the blanket!!!!

“( beats being called Fatty!):” LOL :) too funny!!

Ockham’s Razor! – More often times than not, the simplest solution is the correct solution.

But… I really want to get every molecule of dust that I can. My shop is in my basement (90% finished) and I try to keep as much of the dust out of the rest of the house as I can. Because I’m a life long bachelor I’m the one doing all of the cleaning. So an ounce of prevention …

Fatty

-- Chunk

BTW: It’s FWW Vol 205 June 2009. Great article!

CHunk

-- Chunk

Ok—another question? Do you have a dust “hood” under the bottom of your saw hooked up to a d.c. or shop vac. Combined with the two,under the saw and out the back, it should help. But remember-you’ll never stop ALL the dust no matter how hard you try—it’s just impossible.

Tubby!!

-- Remember--- one good turn-- gets most of the blanket!!!!

Tubby, (Love it!)

Yeah my Delta comes with a dust shoot that mounts horizontally under the saw. It has a 4” flange for my dust collector hose. I’ve been cutting a lot of MDF the last couple of weeks. I’ve forgotten how much dust one cut of MDF makes.

I know that I can’t stop all of the dust, but the more that makes it to DC, the less vacuuming that I have to do. Well I should say, the less vacuuming the Roomba has to do. :)

I’ve been reading the article that bothus referred too and it has opened my eyes to dust collection. Like making sure that all of the holes in the saw are covered. The ones for the tilt and height adjustment, between the saw base and top. etc. Seems pretty basic but it’s something that I hadn’t considered.

Chunk

-- Chunk

Yea—I forgot to mention about the holes and any openings around the top where the saw connects to the base. I”ve got a Delta UniSaw X5 w/ a 52” r.c., and a Biesemeyer fence. When I got the saw set up, and d.c. hooked up, that dude would throw dust out the back, down the sides, etc. Coludn’t figure it out. I had my wife to watch while I run a piece through. It was coming from all those places. I fixed it like I did my Crapsman. Sealed it up with the forementioned tape. Stopped that nonsense. Also any little holes exposed,too.
Sounds like you got it well in hand, so get set up, start building, and post some shop shots. I’ll be looking for them. Porky !!!

-- Remember--- one good turn-- gets most of the blanket!!!!

Just a little update on my quest for better table saw dust collection. I’ve done a few “mods” to the tablesaw. One is I cut cardboard and use blue tape to fill the hole in the rear of the saw where the motor sticks out. This works great but I can’t tilt the blade so this will have to be improved. I’ve covered the holes around the blade height adjustment, again with a strip of blue tape, I’ll get something a little more permanent in the future. But the most noticeable change of all came after I used expandable foam (Great Stuff) around the table top and the sides of the saw. Man what I difference this made. Obviously it’s a combination of all of the things that I’ve been doing but after this one, the dust collector actually pulls saw dust off of the top of the table down into the saw. I couldn’t believe it when I saw it happen.

I plan on trying to box in the back of the saw, something like that was described in FWW as discussed above, but there’s very little room between the top of the table and the motor when tilted on my saw. This has me concerned as how to “box” the motor in while keeping full range of motion on the tilt axis.

Thanks for you help!

-- Chunk

I bought the magnetic plexi covers from dustroyer. I just checked the site.. but I guess they stop production… Eric didn’t have my saw on there site a few months ago, So I measured it up, and he made a set for my Delta 36-979. Fit pretty good. Dust doesn’t go out the back. It also has the dust port underneath it. Most of the dust that comes from the TS is when its coming up above the blade. So unless you have an above blade dust hose you’re not going to be 100% dust free.

Only thing is I have to take it off if I make any angle cuts. But that doesn’t happen too often.

dustroyer is basicly what I have except mine looks like cra It’s just card board and blue tape. P)

-- Chunk

FWIW, closing off the back of the saw like you have done is a HUGE improvement, but like has been mentioned above, you need to collect above the table as well. My system picks up from the OE blade shroud port, a belly pan underneath, and a Shark Guard with port. I realize how well the Shark Guard works when I forget to hook it up and dust goes everywhere…

-- Trying to follow the example of the master.

Here are three links which have some interesting ideas….

http://woodchuck1957.googlepages.com/home

http://www.newwoodworker.com/jetdust.html

http://books.google.com/books?id=gnOMR3j6KMYC&pg=PA96&lpg=PA96&dq=contractor's+saw+dust+collection&source=web&ots=HJy_GrJCLd&sig=dCfJQ9qYXQ3hMSg5ACq-x6xc3rI&hl=en#v=onepage&q=contractor's%20saw%20dust%20collection&f=false

I built my dust shroud from a plastic roofers pipe jack boot flashing bought at home depot. The pipe jack boot is almost exactly the right size for the bottom of my craftsman contractor’s saw. I attached it with some mounting tape and a few pieces of plywood to fill in the gaps.

Then I cut a 4” piece of PVC at a 45 degree angle and inserted it into the flashing. The rubber boot allows me to adjust the PVC anywhere I want, so it can be put directly into the sawdust stream as it comes off the blade. I found that with this setup so close to the blade almost no dust escapes and I don’t need to seal off the back of the saw. And it’s cheap, too! The boot jack was about $4.00 and I already had the PVC from the rest of my dust collection system.

Maybe this would work for you too?
!

From Untitled Album

(Table Saw Pipe Boot)!

!

From Untitled Album

(Table Saw Pipe Boot – Inside)!

KingGordon:

“Yeah my Delta comes with a dust shoot that mounts horizontally under the saw. It has a 4” flange for my dust collector hose.”

It’s the rear of the saw that’s the issue but that’s a most excellent idea.

-- Chunk

The motor enclosure will work fine on your contractor’s saw. On mine I added the dust port under the trunion and built a box around the motor hanging out the back. You have to be sure to build the box big enough so that you can tilt the blade to 45 degrees. I also suggest a second dust port built into the bottom of the box, under the motor.

It’s also very important to have a hole or holes in the side or back of the box that’s large enough to provide plenty of airflow. After trial and error I discovered that a 4” diameter hole in one side of the box provided sufficient air for my 2 HP DC unit to work fine with this set up.

-- Build for the joy of it!

“there’s very little room between the top of the table and the motor when tilted on my saw.”

It’s about 1/8” or less. So how to box the motor in, be able to tilt the saw and still be able to feed lumber through the saw without it hitting the box? That is the problem that needs to be solved at the moment.

Right now I can’t tilt the blade due to my outfeed table. I’ve marked out the area where the motor will hit the table and plan on cutting that area out, about 4-1/2”x3” in size. I could box the motor in using the outfeed table at the “top of the box”, just as described in the FWW article above but then I’ve got this hole in the top of the box.

I’ve got an idea to cut the hole in the outfeed table, and then make a “blank” that will fit into the hole. I’ll have to remove the blank for angled cuts but right now that’s the best that I can come up with.

I’ll snapped some pictures later and post them. A picture is worth a 1,000 words. Right now, I got to go stir the Chili!

-- Chunk

Here’s the area that will need to be removed to elliminate the interferance between the motor and the table.

Here is a shot of the rear of the saw at 90°

Here is a shot of the rear of the saw with the blade tilted. You can only get about 40° tilt before it hits the table.

That table top is 3/4 MDF with a laminate top and you can see that the motor needs to go quite a bit more before it gets to a full 45°. So enclosing the rear of the saw isn’t as straight forward as one might think.

-- Chunk

I have a Craftsman contractor saw that is the same way. I used 1/8 hardboard and made it in two pieces. Then I epoxyed some rare earth magnets to the two pieces. I used about 8 magnets total, 1/16” thich 3/8” dia. This worked great and when I needed to tilt the blade I can jusst take them off.

-- We are the people our parents warned us about.

I like the magnet idea. That’ll work.

-- There are three signs of old age. The first is loss of memory. I forgot the other two!

Hey Chunk———lay off the Chili—- it’s fattening!!!!! Tubby!!!

But if you must eat it, be sure to have some crackers to go with it. Tub again!!!!

You’re project is coming along nicely. You’ll be ready to make some serious sawdust soon.

-- Remember--- one good turn-- gets most of the blanket!!!!

Chili w/out crackers? What do you think I am?

Magnets: The Shark Guard was talked about earlier in the thread. I found a video of one at YouTube and that’s exactly what they were doing. A two piece lexan unit with magnets. I liked that idea a lot and I think it’s a good solution.

-- Chunk