Segmenters' Windshield

[Richard Madison]

Given that some kind of eye protection is a must, not everyone cares to wear a full face shield when cutting segments on the table saw. And even with a DC evacuating dust from the saw cabinet, there is a dust-laden breeze from the saw blade directed at the operator’s face. Considerable time may be spent at the saw cutting hundreds of segments, and the last project exceeded my limit of tolerance for the aforementioned breeze.

There is a good tutorial on line for building a dust hood that hovers above the saw blade and is connected to a DC. For those lacking the resources or inclination to build such a device there is a simple, if somewhat less satisfactory alternative. It is simply a windshield that blocks the dusty breeze from blowing directly at the operator’s face, as shown in the attached photos.

The prototype shown uses 4” of a retired segment sled for the base, a piece of scrap 2x2, and a piece of scrap (hence the hole) acrylic plastic. Eventually I may refine it a bit and add some “grips” to secure it in the T slots with wing nuts on top, but for now a C clamp will do. After the initial test (730 segments cut) I can report that it works well. Plan to put some tape over the hole before resuming segment cutting tomorrow.

Comments and critiques welcome, and thanks for looking.

[charlie knighton]

good idea, Richard, are you in the begining stages of another "Lost My Marbles"?

[Richard Madison]

Thanks Charlie. Yes, today was the first day. This one will be only slightly bigger but much tougher, as there is not enough walnut to do every other segment. Will be much harder to maintain pattern alignment with only two "walnuts" per ring. Not sure I can do it, but only one way to find out. Check this space in about a month and hope for the best.

[Gerold Griffin]

Richard I like this idea!!! I have a old blower unit from a central heat and air unit that I use to blow the finer dust away from me and I use a full face shield. This looks like a good idea until I can find a good air resperator that a bearded fella can wear. With a heavy enough piece of plexi it should also be a guard if modified somewhat. Thanks!!! You gave me some idea's here.

[Jim Swift]

Excellent idea
As a new and very inexperienced segmenter, I too was wondering what to do to keep all the slingging dust off the face
Thanks
Jim

[Malcolm Tibbetts]

Richard, this is an excellent solution. I've never bothered doing anything along these lines because I cut almost all my segments with a chop saw. With the chop saw blade spinning away from the operator and with a vac hook-up, I can breathe pretty clean air regardless of how long I stand there cutting segments.

[Richard Madison]

Thanks all for your comments. Hope my "windshield" idea will be helpful to you.

Meanwhile am also convinced that, given a choice, a good chop saw is indeed the better tool for cutting segments. A table saw sled must have a little "slop" in order to slide in the miter slots, and the slop increases with use, whereas a good chop saw should have virtually no slop in its action. Unfortunately can not justify purchase of the latter at present, so must carry on with 20 year old cabinet saw.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Great idea Richard. Thanks for sharing.