Dust collection?

[Matthew Lau]

Dear MIMF,

I'm finally back a building instruments!!

What do you guys recommend for dust collection?
I'm planning to mainly get my wood pre-thicknessed and preslotted (aside from tops).
Mainly, I'd be using a bandsaw, tablesaw (rip for necks), drill press (Safety planer, thanks Al), and mostly planes and chisels.

I have a Fein vac and dust deputy (tool trigger, variable suction), and a Festool Vac (ditto, whines more than the Fein--thinking of selling it). I also don't have a lot of space, nor can I put a compressor/blower outside (or my neighbor will steal it).

Do you think the fein will be fine?

-Matt

ps. For messy stuff, I mainly just open the garage door.

[Bob Gramann]

I have a nice dust collector. A lot of the shavings from my band saw, from the table saw, and from the drill press (where I don’t even try) escape. The dust collector works quite well on the thickness sander and okay on the belt and disk sander. If you wear a dust mask and have some sort of filter to clear the air, you should be okay cleaning up afterwards with the vacuum. The vacuum can’t keep up with a thickness sander. A good vacuum might do as much as 200 cfm. Most shop vacuums are around 120 cfm. My dust collector (a 1.5 hp Penn State upgraded with a cyclone and a huge 1 micron filter cartridge) advertises 1500 cfm. I don’t believe that, but it certainly pulls a lot more than the vacuum. I use a squirrel cage fan in a box pulling through a 20x25 3M “1900” filter to clear the air when I’m running the machines. I have a particle counter that verifies that the filter/fan combination can clean my 30x15’ shop in a few minutes.

[Bob Hammond]

Matthew, if I recall correctly, you're a part-time builder with limited shop space. I think you're ok with what you have if you set it up carefully, since you'll be running one machine at a time. If you look at Bill Pentz's site, you will see that effective dust collection can be achieved with a vac and separator if they're well matched. I know that Fein vacs are very good machines, and the dust deputy is usually effective too. (I built a small wall mounted system that you can see in the library,btw.)

The key is to collect dust at the point of origin and keeping the duct length short. This means a shroud for every machine, and placing the dust deputy and vac on a mobile cart that can be moved close to the machine.

[Bob Howell]

Box fan with a air filter is so easy. I have two in addition to my cyclonic based dust collection and fancy air filtration sys. You never catch all sanding dust.

Find a covered area nearby so you can sand out side.

Try everything. Dust is a b**ch.

[Matthew Lau]

Matthew, if I recall correctly, you're a part-time builder with limited shop space. I think you're ok with what you have if you set it up carefully, since you'll be running one machine at a time. If you look at Bill Pentz's site, you will see that effective dust collection can be achieved with a vac and separator if they're well matched. I know that Fein vacs are very good machines, and the dust deputy is usually effective too. (I built a small wall mounted system that you can see in the library,btw.)

The key is to collect dust at the point of origin and keeping the duct length short. This means a shroud for every machine, and placing the dust deputy and vac on a mobile cart that can be moved close to the machine.

Yup. You're totally correct.

[Mark Fogleman]

If you don't have a HEPA filter cartridge for the Fein, I would highly recommend getting a Cleanstream HEPA filter http://www.cleanstream.com/products/lan ... idgid.html ) and adapt it to your vac. They are ~$30 at your local big box store. The model for Rigid/Craftsman fits the Fein. If you have an older Fein you'll need a nut, bolt and large fender washer to adapt it. It makes a tight friction fit on the Turbo II and newer models. I have been amazed at the amount of flow these filters allow when coupled up with the standard cloth bag that came with the Fein. Mine is about 15 years old and cleans with a blast of air and rinse under the faucet. If you add a Dust Deputy or diy Thein chip collector inline you will push the performance and reduce the need to clean/empty the vac.

I second the suggestion of also using a 20" box fan with high performance pleated HVAC filter duct taped to the back. Place as close as you can to your hand sanding area and draw any dust into the filter and blow away from you.