Question on down draft tables

[Rick Reinsma]

I am setting up my shop and was thinking about building a portable down draft table in corporated into my work bench ,one that I could take out or insert when needed ,but was wondering , Do you really need one? Most of the sanding is probably not even done there. What is your advice...Thanks Rick

[Jim Dunn]

Rick I built a stand alone down draft table and do all my sanding on it. I also have a smallish assembly table out of it to boot. Only thing I would do different is make taller. I had originally made it rather short to accomodate my Ryobi OS which I also use on top of the down draft table. But I find I don't all that much OS after all.

[James Boster]

Rick I built a stand alone downdraft table several years ago. I used an old furnace blower below filters. Table size is about 30"x 60" full of 1" holes. It works really well if you keep filters clean. I use two 20"x20" filters side by side. I have pleated filters with regular filters on top to catch bigger stuff. I did change to using a dedicated shop vac "2gallon size" and a hose attached to my porter cable 333 random orbit sander and done away with the cannister dust collector that was on it. This helped out 100%!!!! I still run the downdraft table to help clear the air sometimes but the vac and hose to sander will do you more good. Just my opinion.

[Jim Becker]

Collecting at the tool is the best choice, but if you do a lot of hand sanding, a downdraft table can be quite useful in collecting at least some portion of the free-floating fines that result from that activity.

I don't know that I'd want one built into my primary bench, but logically speaking, putting it in a work surface is generally better space utilization than having a separate, dedicated unit for many folks...space in most shops is dear, no matter what the size!

[Jim Dunn]

I forgot to mention that I also installed 3 filters in my downdraft table. One is a standard furnace filter. The second is a, I think, .5 micron furnace filter not sure?? Then for the third I installed a charcoal filter. I'm a smoker and try to keep my addiction to my work shop with the down draft table running. This charcoal filter is supposed to remove pet odor and smoke odor. I couldn't tell you if it works or not for sure but it was worth a try.

[Bryan Nuss]

Rick, I built one similar to Terry Hatfield's:

http://www.terryhatfield.com/dd_table.html
It works great. I cut out a couple handholds in one long side to make it easier to carry. If you stand it on edge, it doesn't take up much space. You can rest it on a couple sawhorses if you don't have a table free. Be sure to use 1/4" pegboard.