Hammer F3 shaper dust collection

[ian maybury]

Hi guys. I bought Hammer F3 tilting head spindle moulder some time ago, and will be starting to use it soon. Has anybody any experience of how well the dust collection works on these?

There's only the connection to what's a pretty standard hood with a 5in port above the table - no sign of anything like the under table port seen on some machines. The area around the spindle below the inserts/rings is boxed in by the trunnion casting and it's fabricated mounting to create a closed volume/box off the underside of the table of maybe 6in x 6in x 5in deep. There's a slot in the bottom of this box of about 5 x 2in or a bit smaller which is sealed by flexible brush type flaps on each side which will pass air fairly freely - but which are probably intended to stop chips falling through.

So far as I can tell the suction created in the top hood by the dust system draws air in through these flaps, into the box, up through the ring, past the cutter and out through the top hood. The flow out through the port is made up of this, plus whatever it draws through the gaps between the cutter and the fence.

It actually looks like it may not do too badly given plenty of airflow...

ian

[David Kumm]

Hey Ian, while the bigger Felder shapers have great under the table collection, many larger shapers rely mainly on the hood for collection. You really want a lot of cfm through the port so your system will be good. Look for cutters that operate face side up and cut on the top of the board for the best collection. Raised panel cutters are more scary face side up but face side down will fill the base pretty quickly. Face up cutters demand good hold downs or a feeder even more than normal so don't cheat on securing the material or making jigs to secure the work. Dave

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, I have the B3 Winner (same shaper as the F3) and dust collection is good with the 120mm port and lots of airflow.

Before that I had a General shaper and it also had above the table extraction only............Regards, Rod.

P.S. For raised paels I cut them good side down and don't have a problem with chip collection