dust collector bags

[jared herbert]

I was wondering what sort of fabric that you could use to make your own dust collector bag out of. I have a delta belt sander with a built in blower that I just bought. I thought I had an unused bag off my regular dust collector that I would cut down to use on it but of course I cant find it. I was doing some wandering on google and found some that would fit that are designed for a floor sander and are said to be made of canvas. Would denim work? Or any particular type of canvas? Just bouncing this around in my head. Thanks for any help you can give me. Jared

[Greg Peterson]

I start the squabble.

No bag on a belt sander is going to collect dust. Or at least the dust you really want to capture. Sure it will fill up with wood dust-like material, and some may even consider the contents of the bag to be dust.

I would consider a way to hook the belt sander up to a DC or at least a shop vac that has a decent filter. I use a Dust Deputy inline with my shop vac and am very happy with the performance of this configuration on small power tools.

IMO, felt, canvas or denim, it doesn't matter much.

[Russell Sansom]

Somebody called the typical dust collector filter a "dust pump". If I read this correctly, they only trap particles about 30 microns or bigger. Many shop vacs ( Fein, Festool ) will take out particles of 5 microns or 2 microns depending on the filter. I believe it's the 2 micron stuff that's really bad for you lungs, migrates to living areas, and spreads over everything. I'd have a hard time believing that canvas would remove more of the small particles than a typical dust collector bag.