I am new to Lumber Jocks, so this topic may be an old one - if so, just ignore it. My gripe, and question concerns the incompatibility between portable hand tools and shop vacuums for dust pick up. I have numerous portable power tools, saws, routers, sanders, etc., that have the potential for dust pickup, but rarely is the pickup orifice sized to fit a "typical" vacuum. Even within the same manufacturer, the tools and vacuums are incompatible. For instance, I have a Fein Dust Extractor and a Fein Multi-master sander. The dust pickup for the sander is a different size than the vacuum! Crazy. Porter Cable's drywall sander does not fit Fein, Wap, nor Craftsman. Maybe it fits the PC vacuum, but I already have more vacuums than I want, so buying another specifically for the drywall sander is not going to happen. I have one of their random orbit sanders, an older unit that works terrific. I ordered the dust collection accessories for it and found the hose is a unique size and nothing fits it which means I'm back to duct tape, which actually works ok, but is klutzy and makes switching between tools a major pain.
The shop vac I find most worthless for hook up is the Wap - their hose fits nothing! The Fein is a bit better, and of course the Craftsman 2.5" hose is fairly typical, but again, it fits nothing without an adapter. Some adapters are available but the ones I've found are poorly designed with an abrupt corner instead of gradual transition.
Oneida makes a nice little cyclone called the Dust Deputy that works well, but again, doesn't fit any of my vacuums - The inlet on my Dust Deputy is 2". The Craftsman vac (probably one of the most common on the market) is 2.5" which means you cannot connect the vac directly to the cyclone - they offer hoses with various cuffs on the end, but not a 2.5" hose that has a 2.5" cuff on one end and a 2" cuff on the other end, which means you must use an adapter to connect a Craftsman vac to the unit. Seems silly to me since the specific purpose of the Dust Deputy is to act as an in-between for the shop vacuum and the tool.
Routers are equally bad - the Fein extractor almost fits one of my routers (Triton), but none of the others Elu, B&D. Craftsman. So I'm always duct taping fittings together - a real pain.
Another gripe - many sanders that have dust bags (totally useless in my opinion) do not have a decent means for connecting a vacuum hose, of whatever size to them. The Makita small block sander is typical - nice little sander, does a great job, but has a rectangular outlet for their dust bag, which collects about 1% of the dust. When I cobbled up a connection to my Fein vac, the sander worked much better, and collected ~90% of the dust, so why don't they offer something better? Surely I'm not the only person who has found this problem - round hoses do not connect to a rectangular fittings! Then of course there are sanders like the Porter Cable Sandblock that has zero dust collection - so I guess the Makita is better than that. This is why I finally bought a down draft table - it solves the problem most the time.
If any of you have found good inter-connect parts that enable better interface, please let me know. Thank you.
The shop vac I find most worthless for hook up is the Wap - their hose fits nothing! The Fein is a bit better, and of course the Craftsman 2.5" hose is fairly typical, but again, it fits nothing without an adapter. Some adapters are available but the ones I've found are poorly designed with an abrupt corner instead of gradual transition.
Oneida makes a nice little cyclone called the Dust Deputy that works well, but again, doesn't fit any of my vacuums - The inlet on my Dust Deputy is 2". The Craftsman vac (probably one of the most common on the market) is 2.5" which means you cannot connect the vac directly to the cyclone - they offer hoses with various cuffs on the end, but not a 2.5" hose that has a 2.5" cuff on one end and a 2" cuff on the other end, which means you must use an adapter to connect a Craftsman vac to the unit. Seems silly to me since the specific purpose of the Dust Deputy is to act as an in-between for the shop vacuum and the tool.
Routers are equally bad - the Fein extractor almost fits one of my routers (Triton), but none of the others Elu, B&D. Craftsman. So I'm always duct taping fittings together - a real pain.
Another gripe - many sanders that have dust bags (totally useless in my opinion) do not have a decent means for connecting a vacuum hose, of whatever size to them. The Makita small block sander is typical - nice little sander, does a great job, but has a rectangular outlet for their dust bag, which collects about 1% of the dust. When I cobbled up a connection to my Fein vac, the sander worked much better, and collected ~90% of the dust, so why don't they offer something better? Surely I'm not the only person who has found this problem - round hoses do not connect to a rectangular fittings! Then of course there are sanders like the Porter Cable Sandblock that has zero dust collection - so I guess the Makita is better than that. This is why I finally bought a down draft table - it solves the problem most the time.
If any of you have found good inter-connect parts that enable better interface, please let me know. Thank you.