Dust Collection Miter Saws

[Jerry Bittner]

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with my DC system. Works well when I remember to turn it on.

The real nuisance is the CSMS. The dust collector outlet on my RIDGID works as good as most I guess but still end up with a considerable amount of sawdust under the machine. Was looking at the "Downdrafter" on the Eagle America site
http://www.eagleamerica.com/html/catalog/productGroup.asp/334713 and wondered if anyone who has one would comment on its effectiveness. If they work prety good, I thought that rather than spending the $170+ they want for it, one could probably cut down a 32 gallon plastic garbage can and with a stand attached, come up with a fairly good facsimile.

Applause please for a good idea? Skip the boos please.

[Dale Thompson]

Jerry,
I love my DeWalt 12" slider but I use it only outside. For some reason, those things always want to throw the dust back in your face instead of into the collection hood. I'm stumped on that one because on the rare occasions that I use my RAS, the collector picks up virtually everything. I wonder if it isn't in the design of the blade guards? :confused:

In any event, I applaud you for taking a shot at this problem. Let us know if you come up with something that doesn't interfere with the full operational capabilities of the saw. :D :D One hint: Using all of that corrugated hose, like on the link, is NOT going to help! :cool:

Dale T.

[John Miliunas]

Jerry,
I love my DeWalt 12" slider but I use it only outside. For some reason, those things always want to throw the dust back in your face instead of into the collection hood. I'm stumped on that one because on the rare occasions that I use my RAS, the collector picks up virtually everything. I wonder if it isn't in the design of the blade guards? :confused:

In any event, I applaud you for taking a shot at this problem. Let us know if you come up with something that doesn't interfere with the full operational capabilities of the saw. :D :D One hint: Using all of that corrugated hose, like on the link, is NOT going to help! :cool:

Dale T.

Hey Dale, I don't think there's an easy way out of using the flexible hose on that rig, as you need to move it for different miter cuts. Agreed that you could probably get by with a whole lot LESS of it, though!:) :cool:

[Brian Buckley]

Jerry,

I have had the Downdrafter for about 3 months. It works very well, but takes up alot of room. I am useing it on a Bosch 10" slider. There is more to the unit than meets the eye. I purchased mine from Amazon for about $160.00. It was back ordered for over 6 weeks. Not sure if I would buy it again because of the room it takes.

Brian

[Dan Stuewe]

Dave Harker in a previous post gave a link to his web site, on it he shows his idea for this problem. http://webpages.charter.net/harkerhome/WWShop/dcmitersaw.html

This is what I had always imagined for my shop until the Ridgid portable deal this past weekend. My 1 car garage shop (with built in washer and dryer and water heater) would have been difficult to find a place for a permanent miter saw bench, especially for braking down the long boards.

[Andy London]

I built a downdraft table for my CMS station as I spend so much time there making frames, I would guess it catches 95%+.

Overall pretty happy with it.

[Steve Aiken]

I'm thinking about using this design, Andy. How would you improve it to catch a bit more?

Steve

[Andy London]

If I attach a hose to the factory port, with the downdraft table I get 100%, the problem is I spend a lot of time cutting miters in picture frames, the resistance of the hose is enough to make my carpel bother me so I can do with the very little that escapes.

[Tom Peterson]

Andy
great to see that you can cut right and left handed. I I had that I could make my mistakes twice as fast on both ends

[Per Swenson]

Jerry,

I saw on another forum, woodnet I think, someone use
one of these in a ingenius way. They call it a big gulp.
Its inexpensive. If you do a search overthere I am sure you will find it.
This is the link for the gulp, http://www.hartvilletool.com/product/10868
Hope this helps.
Per

[Andy London]

Andy
great to see that you can cut right and left handed. I I had that I could make my mistakes twice as fast on both ends

I do find the miter saws a pain at times as I am left handed, if they ever come out with a left handed saw, I will probably be first in line. I do have a circular saw made for lefties.

The reason I have two is for production picture framing, the one on the right is set to 45 and I never touch it once it's dialed in. I would like to change the station, I have a slider that I would like to put in place of the 12" but it would require a lot of renovations and my renovation work is done for this year....I hope.

[Roger Bell]

I use a downdraft (10" to 5" spun reducer under the saw and connected directly to 5" hose). The downdraft suction also aids in keeping the stock from slipping around.

I supplement the downdraft with a big-gulp hood-like device behind the dust port. (Dust bag removed). It gets just about all of the airborne chips. A home made sheet metal hood connected to a register boot would work as well or better. I believe that Terry Hatfield designed something of this sort. I have seen other renditions elsewhere.

With the two devices working together, I get 95% efficiency. With just the downdraft or just the hood, I wasnt satisfied enough.

[Bob Aquino]

Thats a lotta duckets for something that you could build yourself and may not get all the dust. I don't have a slider but what I have found is that the dust from my 12" saw mostly goes to the back but also collects around the base. My solution was to build a 3 sided shield around the back that allows it to cover all angles the saw can be set at. I put the dust collection port in the middle of that which gets most of the dust that comes out of the little pipe on the saw. What I didnt anticipate is the amount of dust that collects on the bottom as well. Were I to do it over, I would either move the port down low on the back or have two ports, one on the back, and one on the bottom. That would probably get 80-90% of the dust. I don't think a 100% solution is possible with the design of current saws. You just have to do your best to contain it. If you want a portable solution, I would recommend a good foxtail and dustpan.

[Jim Becker]

I'm downdraft similar to Andy's setup...there are some pics in the Miter Station pictorial on my website.

[Chris Rosenberger]

I built a simple box around my CMS. It is 44 " wide X 20" tall X 20" fron to back. Behind the saw is trough that is the full width of the box X 8" deep X 9" front to back with 2 - 4" dust collection inlets. I built a similer box around my Radial Arm Saw. They work very well & also give me a shelf above the saws.

[Ken Waag]

Jerry,

No doubt the SCMS is the toughest nut to crack when it comes to DC. You've got a twelve inch path and a 90 degree swath to cover. I'm a dust collection nut so I've tried a number of solutions,

The hood approach has not worked well for me as it is difficult to get enough suction at the velocity necessary to draw the sawdust stream. I find a lot of the sawdust hits the back of the hood and bounces back out.

The suction port on the saw will do a good job if you can get the dust to it. The problem is that the blade sends the dust off at an angle tangent to where the blade exits the wood. This usually means a stream going well beneath the port and hitting back around the post support. You have to be cutting something 4" thick to have sawdust heading toward the built in suction.

I decided to devise a hinged or flexible shoot that would guide the sawdust toward the suction or you could view it the opposit way; trying to get the suction to extend down to the level of the cut. With this kind of approach I figured if it could be made effective, it would travel with the blade and be equally effective over the SCMS range.

Well I had numerous failures. There was no doubt that a shoot would work since if I held a short lenght of sectioned hose between the DC port and the workpiece level, there was plenty of suction to pull the sawdust right off the blade. Getting something to stay in place thru all the various movements of the scms proved difficult. There was also some "bounce out effect as with the hoods.

While applying some glue to a large surface with a disposable brush, an idea hit me. Brush bristles would be flexible enough to bend as you went over the work piece, so if I could surround the back of the blade shroud with bristles it might keep dust from getting by and focus the suction enough to pull a majority of it up thru the port. By gosh it worked pretty well. better than anything else I've tried. The brushes are perfect as they funnel the suction but they also trap any bouncing dust rather than throwing it back out into the air.

I've been using my first prototype for a month now and I'm thrilled with the results. Very little dust escapes, no problems going thru the usual and various SCMS movements, no bulky hood and cheap to build ($3 in disposable brushes for this version). I post a picture with some embarasment as it is not pretty, but realize this was put together within 20 min. of the idea and I've been using it to see how it would do. It can be improved upon greatly no doubt, but cheaply as well. So FWIW heres the proto.

[Russ Massery]

This is one the best idea that's commerially available. It's not far from Ken's idea.I have a Dewalt slider it's always been a problem. on a SCMS the downdraft didn't work well for me.

[Terry Hatfield]

I built a "corral" behind my Hitachi. It's made from a 6" off set HVAC register boot and some scrap sheetmetal. The sheetmetal "wings" are riveted to the register boot and curved around to catch the dust behind the saw. I covered the edges of the metal with wiring loom from the auto parts store. I had noticed like others posted that most of the dust ended up right behind the saw anyway. Downdraft will not work on the Hitachi because the base is solid. I have 6" to the boot and 4" to the stock port which is 2" on the Hitachi. Unfortunately the 2" port gets much smaller right inside the saw but it still works pretty well.

The corral keeps the dust captured even if every spec is not collected. I've been very happy with it. The saw can tilt and bevel every way and clear the corral.

Here's a couple pics......

<IMG SRC="http://www.terryhatfield.com/new_scms_2.jpg">

<IMG SRC="http://www.terryhatfield.com/ms1.JPG">

Terry