Battling the DUST MONSTERS

Beware the DUST MONSTER 

     Having done battle with the dust monsters  in my shop for several years I now  have a workable though not perfect system in place. I don't pretend to be an expert, this just my experiences shared for what you think they are worth. The air quality as has improved so that I don't track dust all over our house and, more importantly, don't  sneeze tissues full of saw dust at the end of a working day. 

   I began my system five years ago with several shop vacuum cleaners attached to separate bench tools.  I had a large shop vac dedicated to my contractor's table saw and three other small vacuums that moved between my pocket hole jig, sanders, etc.

 The system began to fail as soon as I acquired more and larger shop tools.  I got a planer first.  Most of the time I just ran it with the door open and the dust blew into the back yard.  The weakness of that system is coldly obvious.


   Once I got a joiner and  so really serious about milling my own lumber the mess just rapidly got out of hand.  No longer was it a few rip cuts on the table saw and then some sanding. Now it begins with rough lumber to be dimensioned , milled and machined.
  

         Let me lay out the full system as it is currently.

  First stop Joiner, sadly I count on gravity to draw the chips down a chute and into a box.  Not really a dust collection system,  I console myself by saying it is mostly chips and not much fine dust. (we will tell ourselves, anything).

   Sometimes, but not often, it is the circular saw that comes first.  Dust is not controlled, but I try to avoid the power saw, I even use hand saws sometimes. 
                                                          

     Second stop;  either planer or table saw.  These two tools are set up close together and share my Delta 15amp dust collector. (the reviews is of a recent model but mine is pretty much the same) The amount of chips that this unit collects is impressive, but it is a real pain to empty the bag.  Something I learned was to take the top bag off too and then I can reach down from the inside while putting the bottom bag on.  Since the bag was filling too quickly I bought a cyclone top to go on a garbage can.  The cyclone I bought was fairly cheap and so only moderately effective.  I think it captures about half of the saw dust so it takes twice as long to fill the bottom bag. Anything that allows me to wrestle with the bag half as often is a good thing.


Third, the mitre saw.  I have it attached to a shop vac, but as you know mitre saws are very dirty.  


Band saws and sanders all  are attached to a Oneida Dust Deputy driven by that big old shop vac.  As far as I can tell the Dust Deputy does everything it claims.  I haven't changed a bag in the vac in over a year and have emptied the Dust Deputy bin dozens of times. 

    One thing I did some years ago was buy extra vac hose and solidly tape it to my sander's dust ports.  Now all my sanders plug into my Dust Deputy or Fein Vac easily and quickly, so they get plugged in, even for  short little jobs. 


   The only real stumbling blocks are the mitre saw and the joiner, and I have the pieces for the joiner I just need to re-arrange my floor plan to get the joiner close to the Delta dust collection.  So it is not stumbling, really it is just procrastination. In the near future there will be a dedicated mitre saw station with an umbrella like system to catch free flying chips.  Beyond that or buying a Festool saw I don't know what to do.


Errors in judgement. 


     I bought a small down draft table with a small single bag dust collection vac.  I do not use it.  I haven't got the space to leave it out to work on and the small single bag vac just screams.  The sound makes working beside the down draft table vac wildly unpleasant even with ear plugs.   


   One of my sanders has a square dust port, it was such a pain to make an adapter for so that it would fit easily on the vac hose.  From now on all dust making tools have to have round, standard dust ports. 


Tragedies:
     My old belt sanders don't even have dust ports.  They are indestructible, I'll have them forever and they can really only be used in emergencies  or outside. But man oh man will they remove material in a hurry.   I have a great old Makita finish sander, again it predates dust collection ports on tools.  Sometimes I drag out the down draft table and use the Makita, it is good, but I hate the down draft table so much the Makita doesn't get used much.


    A cool thing I've learned, hand planes and cabinet scrappers are great  and can really reduce noise and dust.  Cabinet scrappers are easy to sharpen and impossible to wreck.  Using planes is not just a back to nature coolness, also they work great, those old dudes did know a few things.


DEATH TO THE DUST MONSTERS !!!!!