Dust Collection

[Russ C]

I am courious as to what members use for dust collection. I use a combination. Shop vacs for some of my tools and a clothes dryer motor/fan for my scrollsaw that vents to the outside. I made a cowling around my scrollsaw and a 1 1/4" vac tube goes to the dust port on the scrollsaw. The fan, light and saw on a power strip, one button and all three have power. The cowling and dryer/fan work great and it is very quiet compared to the shop vacs. I can hear the radio while I am making scrollsaw dust. 

[sgood]

Hi Russ sounds like you have a pretty good setup. My guess from what I hear from my readers is that it is a very small percentage of scrollers that have any dust collection specifically for their scroll saw. I know many of them are interested but just don't have many options. Maybe we will have some more good ideas here.

[m_r_dxn]

I actually don't have a dust collection at all.  Don't have any bench tools except for the scrollsaw and drill press.  My scroll saw has a shop vac connection, but it seems like a little much to have the shop vac running every time I'm using my scroll saw.  A lot of my hand power tools, such as my power sanders, have little built in bags for dust collection.  But a full fledged dust collecting system just doesn't seem like a reasonable investment at this point.  I just make the dust then vaccume up the mess afterwards.

[cherie]

We have used the shop vac method for a long time for various projects that Jaun and I do.  He is now in the process of trying to build a cyclone dust collector system that is suppose to separate the dust from the chips.  As of right now, my whole house is a workshop for him.  So much for vacuming.  LOL.  We will be better off when he gets done.

[Merlin]

Russ some pictures of your set up pretty please.
My shop vac is so damn noisy.

Yours sounds a lot quiter,
Thanks.

Merlin

[MadHatter]

I also have no type of dust collection, other than a cardboard box sitting under my saw to catch the knockoffs. You would think with the price of a Dewalt that there would be a dust collection port on it somewhere, but even without the port i wouldn't trade mine for anything (I'm still grinning like a kid at Christmas over my new saw lol).

[cherie]

Nothing like a new toy to play with now is there.

[jim stiek]

a fan at my back or blowing diagonaly across the saw with a filter box sitting down stream, all shop made do a fine job of controling scroll saw dust for me.

[dunk]

I use a fan with a furnace filter in front of it and it really helps keep down the fine dust in the air.  I also have a delta air filtration system suspended from the ceiling.



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[JohnS]

I have a 2.5" flex hose hooked to my dust collector.  The hose is place directly underneath the throat of my saw.  I didn't notice how well it worked until I forgot to turn it on one day then I really noticed it.  Works fairly well at grabbing the small pieces that fall too.  I wear hearing protection with a radio built in to it when I'm sawing so noise is not an issue.

John

[chips]

 When I first started out I didn't have any kind of dust collection. Just used a broom for clean-up. Then got a shop vac, but as mentioned it was way to loud so ended up just using it for clean-up with plenty of ear protection. Last Fall I got a regular Jet dust collector. Wish I'd bought that many years ago. it has wheels under it so I can just roll it around to the different machines until I get around to building some overhead pipes with gates to each machine.

Chips

[Kepy]

My dust collection system is the floor which then becomes softer to walk on and is insulated from the cold.

[northie66]

I don't collect dust... I blow it out the garage with a leaf blower.   

[cherie]

Janet, I just love how you do things.  Sounds like something I would do, but Jaun will not let that happen.  HEHEHEHEHE.  He is already starting in since I have not vacuumed my floor or table in about a week.

[PaulK]

When you see the dust on the shelves, ledges and light fittings, you know something has to be done?

Recently, I bought a dust extractor with a top filter bag and lower dust collection bag. It?s the best addition to the shop I have made in a long time.
Hopefully the picture has uploaded?

A 4 inch suction hose connects to the machine, and this is often quite rigid, so I got a thinner 4 inch hose from a DIY store, such as Home Depot, to extend the overall hose length. These thin hoses are often used as ceiling ducts for small fans. This gives much more movement and flexibility.

You can have a lot of fun making ( or just buy ) a variety of hoods and connectors appropriate for your machines. This type of extractor has worked well on the scroll saw, bandsaw and particularly on the planer-thicknesser where it collects the majority of chippings - no longer big piles on the floor.

As the machine is on wheels, it also makes a great general vacuum cleaner and quickly keeps the floor and machines very clean.

It is relatively quiet, much more so than most shop vacs which I now use just to get into hard to reach corners. I believe most users won?t see noise as an issue.

Some days, you just want to get on and scrollsaw and I switch the extractor on later and clean up.

Often, manufacturers provide coarse filter bags at around 30 micron filtration. These capture chippings, but fine dust will come through the bag into the shop.For general work I would recommend a bag with filtration better than 5 microns, around 2 microns if possible. If you cut MDF a lot, 0.5 to 1 micron would be better still. The great news is that as the filter bag gets dirty, filtration improves ? though performance does reduce of course.

Not too expensive, especially if you buy used as I did ? around 80 dollars (U.S.)

My shop, machines and general environment have never been so clean.

Overall a great investment.

Happy scrolling - Paul


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