Dust Collection in Blended Shop

[Ron Kanter]

I am thinking of getting rid of my table saw. This is partly a move into more hand work and partly to free up more space which is in short supply in my shop.

At first I was thinking that without the saw I wouldn't need my dust collector. Great, I can recover more floor space. Then I realized that I plan to keep my planer and jointer. As you know, they produce mountains of shavings.

So what do you do if you use those machines? Do you have a dust collector? Do you just let the chips fall where they may:D Am I missing another solution? At least for now, I don't want to give up on machine stock prep.

So many questions, so little space.

[george wilson]

Planers and jointers DO generate a certain amount of dust along with the chips. Eventually,it will build up and be all over your shop. I know this from the many years when I had no collector. I tried to not use my table saw,and used the bandsaw,jointer,and my miserable little jury rigged 12" Parks planer(which I considered myself lucky to get in the 60's). Being only involved in making guitars,I hardly needed the table saw.

[Pam Niedermayer]

You could think about moving the planer and jointer outside, under some sort of roof.

Pam

[James Scheffler]

Well, the dust collector for my jointer consists of a box underneath the dust chute. The "dust" it produces is really mostly shavings. I just vacuum up what happens to fall over the side, etc. (As an aside, the shavings are an awesome addition to my compost bin - I wouldn't dream of throwing them in the trash!).

I use a shop-vac for my lunch box planer, which actually works quite well. This planer has its own fan designed to blow the shavings into a collection bag. The bag that came with it didn't work well, but the air flow from the fan plus the vacuum is enough to provide fairly good collection efficiency. The shop-vac is a fairly large 12-amp machine, but still way smaller than a dust collector.

YMMV,
Jim S.

[george wilson]

Move the machines out under a roof????? How long until they are covered in barnyard rust?

[Gordon Eyre]

My jointer is one of the cleanest tools in my shop. What I did was build an enclosed box under the jointer and then drilled a few air relief holes to make the air flow and my dust collector virtually gets all the shavings and dust. My planer had a dust collection shroud built in and it works great as well. Course I have a good dust collection system.

[Pam Niedermayer]

Move the machines out under a roof????? How long until they are covered in barnyard rust?

Depends on where you live, I guess.

Pam

[Ron Kanter]

Thanks for the feedback. Seem like some folks manage to use their jointer and planer without a real dust collector. I know moving them outside won't work. It was 100 degrees here in Philadelphia this week and is cold and wet during the winter.

Has anyone used one of these Steel City Mini Dust collectors?
http://www.highlandwoodworking.com/steelcitytoolsminidustcollectormodel65115.aspx
It gets decidedly mixed reviews. Only $50 and seems like it could provide the kind of ad hoc collection I will need occasionally.

[David Nelson1]

300 cfm! I had the rockler 650 CFM hang on the wall collector, it worked fair to poor for the jointer and planer. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. 300 CFM is simply to small IMO.

[James Scheffler]

Ron,

It might be helpful if you let us know what sort of planer you have, including whether it has some built-in provision for dust control. Some just have a hood over the outfeed, other machines have an internal pickup, and some have an internal pickup and an internal blower. The amount of static pressure and flow you need for effective dust control will vary greatly based on these factors.

I would also point out that, if you're going to have dust collection at all, you might as well make sure that you're filtering the really small particles. A 30-micron bag (which comes standard with the Steel City you linked) is great for keeping the shop clean, but it does little or nothing to protect your lungs. It's true that I'm using a shop-vac, as mentioned above, but it has a drywall bag and a HEPA filter.

Jim S.

[Ron Kanter]

David,
I know the Steel City mini is not very powerful. I was thinking that because it mounts directly to the machine it might be enough or, at least , a lot better than nothing.
Jim,
My jointer is an Inca 570, 10" jointer/planer. I don't plane to use the planer function. It has a shroud to collect chips but it only partially effective
My planer is a Dewalt 735 with "fan-assisted chip ejection." I'm thinking that the planer is the big chip/dust creator and that with the mini attached to the 735 I might have the problem solved. I don't prep a lot of BF too often, so if I had to do a a little manual cleanup after a planing session, it would be worth it for the extra space I recovered by selling of my Delta canister dust collector.
The Steel City Mini lists the bag as 30 micron, but a few people who have posted reviews online have received it with the 5 micron bag. If it didn't come that way, I would definitely buy the 5 micron bag. I am very fond of my lungs.
Thanks for your continuing help.

[Prashun Patel]

Which planer do you have? I have a DW735 that has really blows the dust/chips out the rear. The force is so great, that I just run some flex pipe from the unit directly to a filter bag. Mine's 20u, but you can certainly get a better one. It catches ALL the chips, so I gotta believe if I had a better bag, it'd get all the fine particles too.

I like this set up because the dedicated bag for the planer fills up quickly, and is easier to change than the dc's.

[David Weaver]

What's your planer? My lunchbox, which I last used I guess about 3 years ago, works fine with a garbage can and strong shop vac. It doesn't get every bit of dust, but it gets 98 % of the big stuff, and I can open the door and flush the air in the shop to get the fines out after I run it.

I'd rather have a door that I can open temporarily and just flush air through the shop when I'm done than have a dust collector running in the shop.

[David Nelson1]

Ron if its fan assisted you might be ok. 50.00 for the collector and an additional 20.00 for the 1 micron bag. The draw back I see is connecting a hose to it. I can't see the collector hooking directly up to planer chute it will be in the way of the wood. Beware of clogging this is one of the main degraders of the Rockler unit. I'd say for the money and the goal is to provide D/C with as small of a footprint as possible go for it but use a hose 10 foot or less.