Dust collection, what do I need?

First of all there is no best for everyone. You will probably want one that uses a 4” hose to match your saw.

A 1 to 1/2 HP should work for two machines as long as they aren’t too far apart. One option is to put it on wheels and move it from machine to machine.

What are your constraints?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Gary, the bandsaw and table saw are about 4 feet from each other. i would like it to have a permanent home, so I could run the duct work and floor sweep and just forget about it. i was planning on putting it in the corner out of the way. These decisions have to be made relatively soon, i have my electrician coming in next sunday to install the outlets.

Are you looking to run the pipe/hose along the floor or up to the ceiling? What’s your budget?
How far away is the corner from the machines?

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I’m not sure what you think your gaining going from a Contractors table saw to a Delta Hybrid, the differences are very small. The Craftsman or Steel City hybrid atleast have a cabinet mounted trunion, and for about the same amount of money you could get a Grizzly 1023 cabinet table saw. As far as a dust collector goes, I would go with a 2hp with either low micron bags or a canister filter. If you have the money a Cyclone dust collector would be even better.

-- If you can't find the time to do it properly, how will you find the time to fix it ?

sending a picture or blueprint of the shop will help us help you.

-- making sawdust....

Gary my shop is pretty small the dust collector won’t be more than a few feet away from the machines. I would like to run the hoses off the floor. My budget is about $400.

Woodchuck, my saw was damaged in a small fire I had in the shop. I would prefer a cabinet saw since I have the opportunity to replace the contractor style. I know I’m only gaining a 1/4 horsepower. Also I may still go with a grizzly 3 hp if I can get a new panel and the shop wired for 220. A cyclone is out of the question due to monetary constraints.

$400 is stretching it. You will still need hoses, pipes, blast gates…

A 220V DC would be better but is sounds like it’s got to be 110V. My suggestion would be to figure out
how you are going to route your pipes/hoses add up the costs and see what’s left of that $400. Then
get the biggest one you can afford.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

I have two dust collectors and have invested less than $100 in both. The first i foud at an Auction where a woodshop was closing it’s doors (owner retired). The second I got from a gentleman when it was damaged in a storm, less than $25 later I have it up and working also. Just keep a sharp eye on sales papers and want ads and you can find some nice deals. I recently found a cyclone unit that I had to pass on for less than $300 due to a divorece. (theirs not mine).

-- Pyromedic602, free wood is always good wood

I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Woodshop Dust Control by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

He runs down the various options and give you the information you need to make sound decisions. Some other online articles you may find useful…

http://unkis17.googlepages.com/dc.htm
http://home.comcast.net/~rodec/woodworking/articles/DC_myths.html
http://www.woodcentral.com/articles/shop/articles_226.shtml
http://harderwoods.com/pipedocs.html
http://www.benchmark.20m.com/articles/BlastGate/blastgatebuilding.html

Good luck!

-- Patrick, Chicago, IL www.TenonAndSpline.com

I have a Craftsman Professional 1.5 HP dust collector. This machine only comes with 30 micron filter bags. I would not recommend it unless you are planning to replace the bags, which I did. You can see the details of my mods here.

A better bet is the Grizzly 2HP dust collector with 2.5 micron bags. Wood magazine rated it pretty good if I remember correctly.

I have the Grizzly 1023SLW table saw and love it. I plan on purchasing several other machines from them in the future. The cabinet mounted trunnions make a big difference in accuracy. I will say that if I had it to do again I would not get the router table attacment. Instead I would have gotten the longer rails. A dedicated router table is a much better solution than what is provided with this saw.

-- Owen Johnson - aka IowaWoodcrafter

You can always buy the dust collector and slowly add the pipe and blast gates as you get the money. This is what I have done and it has worked out good. I f you are going with a 220 line, then you can get a 2 or 3 hp system. The biggest problem is the cmf that they mark on the machines are usally half of what they will put out. You will also want one with bags that collect dust below 2 micron. If you can get filters instead as they do not release a dust cloud everytime they are turned on.