Rockler "Down Under Router Table Dust Port

[Kelly Colin Mark]

I'm looking to get some dust collection under my router table plate, but would prefer not to have to build or buy an under-table housing.

I have a Jessem lift (Mast-R-Lift II) which does not have the under-plate dust port that the Excel II has. On another table I have the older Excel lift, which has an under-plate dust port, and that works pretty well.

I found the Rockler Down Under Router Table Dust Port, which seems like it might work for me, here: http://toolmonger.com/2011/03/21/down-under-router-table-dust-port/.

However, I couldn't find this item on the Rockler website... anyone know where I can find something similar that would work under the table ? The link above suggests it works with Rockler and Jessem plates, which is a plus.

thanks !

[Todd Davidson]

Rockler discontinued the "Down Under Dust Port". I had one and by the way it attached to the plate (in a router table) I don't think it would work on any plates other than the new style Bench Dog & newer Rockler Plates. It definitely wasn't compatible with my old style Bench Dog lift nor the Jessem Mast-R-Plate I have. There's a seller on ebay (Duro_Tools) that sells a Router Table Dust Collection System that may be what you're looking for. It's $39 - twice what the Rockler dust port sold for - but appears to include an attachment for a router fence as well.

[Charlie MacGregor]

Kelly, I followed your link which eventually led me to this.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0045622RE?tag=toolmonger-20
no Idea on the effectiveness.

[Mike Henderson]

I know you said you didn't want to build anything but it's pretty easy. I just built a box, with a door, and put a dust collector hose on it. My router is in one wing of my table saw.

See pixs.

Mike

258429258428

[Kelly Colin Mark]

Todd, Charlie: thanks for the links. You're both pointing to the same item, which I think is made by Keen (keen-products.com). I did some research on that item and it appears that the Jess-em lift is problematic with it - and Charlie, you're right that the item I was looking for might also be, but at $20 I was willing to take a chance.

Mike, the primary reason I don't want to build anything is that I plan to just use a Festool vac - and I don't think it would provide enough oomph to draw enough air through the plate opening to eliminate the dust top-side - I think I really need something doing at-source pickup. I'm toying now with building some sort of structure sitting between and router base to keep that area enclosed and small enough that a vac might work - but getting a dust fitting into there will prove to be a challenge.

As an aside, does anyone actually ever use the full travel of their lift ? It seems that mine has several inches that could never be used - there's no bits long enough that I've seen to make sense.

thanks guys.

[johnny means]

An enclosure, if sealed, would provide better suction than the gizmo you are looking at, which is not sealed on the motor side. The only drawback would be that the enclosure would create a neutral vane which would collect dust (keyword, collect) and need to be cleaned out from time to time.

[Kelly Colin Mark]

I fooled around with some PVC pipe that I picked up at Home Depot. Turns out 3" pipe just perfectly sits around the motor, My thought was to put that around the motor, extending up to the insert plate, and then somehow insert some DC fitting or hose into it. I figured the fan would blow any dust that didn't get sucked up immediately, back up where it could get another shot at being sucked up.

However, I realized that the fit is so good that if I don't center that part properly, the motor wouldn't pass through. Also, since bit size varies, there's no good way to ensure that the pipe extends to the insert plate for all bits. Then I started trying to source (to no avail) simple nesting or telescoping tubes that would extend and retract as the motor raised. While doing so, I found some 3-d printer files for telescoping tubes, and it occurred to me *that* was the perfect way to do this.

I'm off getting 3-d printing quotes and wondering about buying or making my own now !

[david brum]

I have one of those Down Under things attached to my router table. I had to "customize" it to fit, but it works great now. It didn't cost much, so I didn't mind cutting it to make it fit. If you want one, you might try calling your local Rockler retail store to see if they have some old inventory. I also see that somebody is selling the port and plate combo on ebay.

[Kelly Colin Mark]

I have one of those Down Under things attached to my router table. I had to "customize" it to fit, but it works great now. It didn't cost much, so I didn't mind cutting it to make it fit. If you want one, you might try calling your local Rockler retail store to see if they have some old inventory. I also see that somebody is selling the port and plate combo on ebay.
Unfortunately, I'm in Canada so my local store is 2-1/2 hours away, in Buffalo.

David, as I look more at the "Down Under" and the Keen part, they start looking more similar. Would you be kind enough to tell me how deep the cup is that sits under the plate ?

I got a quote for the telescoping tubes I had spec'ed out, about $120. Remarkably cheap for something that could essentially be customized, but more than I'm willing to spend for this application.

[Joe Scharle]

I have the Keen system in 2 of my tables and they do a very good job.

[david brum]

Would you be kind enough to tell me how deep the cup is that sits under the plate ?

A rough measurement of the cup height is around 1 1/8". That's with me leaning under the router table with a caliper and getting an approximation. As I recall, I did have to cut away some of the top of the cup to fit better with my Dewalt router base. I should say that I still lose around 1/4" of max bit height extension because of the cup's interference.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Mike, the primary reason I don't want to build anything is that I plan to just use a Festool vac - and I don't think it would provide enough oomph to draw enough air through the plate opening to eliminate the dust top-side - I think I really need something doing at-source pickup. I'm toying now with building some sort of structure sitting between and router base to keep that area enclosed and small enough that a vac might work - but getting a dust fitting into there will prove to be a challenge.


I built a box as Mike did and I connected it to my dust collector. I get pretty good airflow so it should pull a bunch in. Much depends on exactly what I am routing, however. For example, the last thing that I routed, used a round-over bit and almost nothing was pulled in even with the big dust collector.

I built my own router fence, to which I attach a vacuum (through a dust deputy cyclone) to the end of the fence. For this application, the fence with dust collection caught almost all of the wood that was removed. I have certainly done some tasks where almost all of the resulting chips and dust are pulled under the router (I was probably cutting dados or something, but I am more inclined to do that on my table saw if I can).

[Julie Moriarty]

I built a "down under" type box for my router, which sits in the right wing of my table saw. Because I wanted to reduce the amount of dust pulled in at the motor vents, I cut a hole in the bottom just large enough to fit the router. The motor vents are outside the box, as is the speed control.
http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/dc/routerdc_01_zps82685134.jpg
The white band you see around the router is foam PSA tape. I was trying to keep dust from coming through the opening and getting into the motor vents. It didn't work too well. Apparently, the suction from the DC wasn't enough to keep the dust from dropping down.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/dc/routerdc_02_zpsb64dfc0a.jpg
This is with the front cover removed. I've been doing a lot of work with sapele and mahogany. You can see how much of the dust builds up along the sides of the box.

http://i867.photobucket.com/albums/ab233/jules42651/dc/routerdc_03_zps29cd091b.jpg
I use the blast gates to control how much suction there is at the fence vs the collection box on bottom. But I'm still not happy with how it all works.

Kelly, I understand your reasons why you want a more direct point of dust collection but I wanted to show you that even with the box-below method there are weaknesses. If you completely enclose the router, the motor vents are subject to getting clogged. And if you try to resolve that like I did, the dust collection is inefficient.

I was thinking of using a 4" or 6" flexible hose that I would insert between the router plate and the motor housing and then try to tap into that. I access the collet nut from above so the flexible hose wouldn't interfere with bit changes. I just haven't taken the time to explore this possibility any further. When the present project is done, exploring that is high on my list.

[Joe Scharle]

A rough measurement of the cup height is around 1 1/8". That's with me leaning under the router table with a caliper and getting an approximation. As I recall, I did have to cut away some of the top of the cup to fit better with my Dewalt router base. I should say that I still lose around 1/4" of max bit height extension because of the cup's interference.

It's easy enough to pull the cup right out of the router if needed. When I use my one remaining horizontal panel raising bit (I've gone vertical), I simply pull the cup out and block air flow. For $40, it's worth trying!

[Bruce Kohl]

I had one of these over/under dust hoses on my PC 7518 router in a Woodpecker lift. Did a pretty good job of collecting chips, but it was very hard to get to the collet nuts to change bits from above the table since the rubber collecting collar interfered with the router going to the maximum height of the lift so the nuts would be above the table level and easily accessible. Since above the table bit changes are one of the big advantages of a router lift I found this dust collector hose to be useless for me and removed it. After that I went with an enclosed area under the router connected to the vacuum and that works for me just fine.

[Kelly Colin Mark]

Thanks everyone for your thoughtful replies.

Yesterday I ended up buying one of those under-table boxes that I said I didn't want to build. I think I mentioned earlier that I didn't think my Festool vac would work very well connected to a larger box, and I still think so, but I decided that simply collecting dust was better than nothing (unless the motor vents get covered as Julie suggested could happen). So I bought this (http://http://www.atlas-machinery.com/products/General-40-130-Dust-Collection-Kit) box, just so I could get on with it, until I could figure out how to capture the dust closer to the bit. Certainly, vacuuming out a box has to be better than having it spray all over my floor like it is now.

Anyways, I realized that I might have been better off building one as the orientation of the box is really 90 degrees off from how I have my table set up but frankly, I felt like all my shop time is spent building stuff for the shop.

I found a Canadian distributor of the Keen part and think I will take a chance and get one - it isn't that much. The other thought I had was just getting some clear tubing and shoving that right up to where the collet is and hooking my Festool up to that. Another thought I had was that there might be a dust shroud to go over some router base that might be narrow profile enought to work.

Julie, your thought about getting flex hosing and collapsing it accordion-style between router and plate is exactly what I was trying to do with the telescoping tubes idea I mentioned. In fact, I looked at some flex the other day but it doesn't collapse enough to cover the range of the lift. Maybe what I ought to do is just cut different lengths of hose for different heights - then the limited collapsibility of the hose becomes nearly moot. I'd have to get under the table to hook the vac up to it though.

In case anyone is wondering, I am paranoid about dust. I have a small basement shop in my house and young kids, and I am prepared to do any and everything I can to reduce our exposure.

[Julie Moriarty]

Julie, your thought about getting flex hosing and collapsing it accordion-style between router and plate is exactly what I was trying to do with the telescoping tubes idea I mentioned. In fact, I looked at some flex the other day but it doesn't collapse enough to cover the range of the lift. Maybe what I ought to do is just cut different lengths of hose for different heights - then the limited collapsibility of the hose becomes nearly moot. I'd have to get under the table to hook the vac up to it though.

In case anyone is wondering, I am paranoid about dust. I have a small basement shop in my house and young kids, and I am prepared to do any and everything I can to reduce our exposure.

The compressibility of the hose was what I saw as the problem too. And from what I've seen in my setup, dust getting into the motor vents is a problem with the complete enclosure method. It's like there isn't a great solution. I'm concerned about clogging the vents and overheating the motor, maybe because I'm an electrician and I've seen motors burn out because of that. So that's a big concern for me.

But I fully understand the dust getting through the house issue. I don't have any HVAC returns in my basement but from what I can see in the rest of the house, dust still makes its way upstairs. The router and table saw are probably the biggest offenders. I've been working with sapele on my present project and the dust is very fine. I built a box fan filter that I place in the doorway and create a vacuum in the workshop. It catches a lot of dust but I still see it in the rest of the house. It's almost as if you have to hermetically seal the workshop to keep dust out of the rest of the house.