Dust Collection on an Older Unisaw

[Barry Beech]

Hello Creekers! I've been a lurker for quite a while and thought now was as good a time as any to post.

I am pretty much a beginner wood worker (expecially after seeing the work here). I have built a few pieces of furniture and right now am working on a walnut entertainment center for our bedroom. Well after machining some of the walnut, I started coughing and stuff. I then learned that Walnut has properties that are poisonous and I know realize that I deperately need a DC.

One problem that I have is that I have an older Unisaw that doesn't have DC fittings. I need to add a dust collector to the saw and not sure the best way to go about this. Should I enclose the motor cover and add the hose on the bottom? Or should cut a hole in the back of the cabinet?

Another thought is should there be something in there to collect the dust to the hose fitting???

Anyone else have these problems?

Your thoughts are much appreciated.

Thanks!!!

[mike malone]

hi barry
my problem is dust coll on a tablesaw too. I have a pM66 and a PM72 and just bought a late 80's delta 12-14" tablesaw. to me this is the best t/saw around for collection.
the cabinet is pretty well sealed and goes right to the floor. there is a hinged door (motor cover) on the side. The only opening is a 4" detachable port at the rear of the cabinet. I plan to use that and the Uniguard bladeguard and attach a 4" hose to that as well. This should be far better than any solution i could come up with for the PM saws....so they are going.
The unisaw has a motor cover and i am sure you could cut a hole in it and rig up a dc hose to it....but you'll still need to handle sawdust at the blade.
good luck , mike

[Mike Kelly]

Barry, here are some pics of an older (1953) Unisaw DC add-on. I made a motor cover out of plywood. The skirt on the bottom was 2x4 material from a pallet from the far east. I stapeled garage door weatherstripping to the bottom to seal it with the floor. I did that years before I added dust collection. The cast iron skirt didn't fit the only set of wheels available at the time. HTC makes one for it now. The vent was from Home Depot I think. You can see where the previous owner had cut a hole on the bottom. It was too small so I added a bigger one.

[Jim Becker]

What Mike shows is exactly what I was going to suggest...

BTW, welcome to the Creek!

[Jamie Buxton]

Mike ---
There are still some fairly big holes in your saw's base. For instance, there's the arc in the front where a handle goes, and there's the louvers in the cleanout door, and there's gaps where the webbing on the underside of the table top meets the base. Have you tried plugging those to see if performance improves?

[mike malone]

you can handle the arc hole by using a plexiglass baffle that fits over the hole and behind your handwheel....and let it move with the wheel

BUT cutting hole in the cabinet?????............ i'd cut a hole in the motor cover before i'd EVER consider cutting the cabinet.

I use casters on all my saws and place a large piece of tempered masonite between the casters and the base to seal the bottom
regards
mike

[Jim Becker]

Keep in mind that you cannot close up all the hole...you need air flow for the dust collection to actually work. Minimally, you need the same area as your port and a little more isn't a bad idea.

[Bart Leetch]

Here is that way I hooked up my dust collection. The shot with the gate pulled toward the operator is the open position.

I found that if I cut 5/8" out of the side of the PVC pipe & glued & clamped it back together with a hose clamp & it will fit into the flex hose to make it fit another PVC fitting you can slip a piece of the same pipe over it. If it doesn't fit perfectly tight I have wrapped the reduced diameter pipe with duct tape & then worked the regular sized pipe over it. This makes an end on the hose that will fit other PVC fittings that you can plug & unplug.

I don't understand how you could pick up the maximum amount of dust & chips by installing your collection point high up in the case or the door. what about the dust & chips that fall to the bottom of the case.

Maybe using 6" ducting you could collect the maximum amount of dust & chips. If this is so I'll need to put the newer side plate with a 6" opening in it in my Grizzly G1029.

As to cutting a hole in the cabinet it a tool & I don't think cutting a hole in the cabinet if its done carefully will devalue the tool. My hole was cut with a saber-saw (hand held Jig-saw for those of the younger school) & was tight enough that I had to work to get the PVC to go into it. It is not glued or screwed just friction fit real tight. :D

The one thing I haven't figured out how to make yet is a tight fitting dust ramp to go from up high on the left to the lower right hand side of the saw case to direct the dust & chips to the DC opening. Does anyone have suggestions on how to do this?

Yes I call a table model a Jig-saw & the hand held model a Saber-saw it make it easier to differentiate between the 2 saws. I suppose one could be called a Scroll-saw & the other a Jig-saw so which is which?

[Mike Kelly]

Mike ---
There are still some fairly big holes in your saw's base. For instance, there's the arc in the front where a handle goes, and there's the louvers in the cleanout door, and there's gaps where the webbing on the underside of the table top meets the base. Have you tried plugging those to see if performance improves?


Jamie, you need a lot of air moving to pick up the chips. The motor cover had weatherstripping, but all the rest were open as I remember, and it worked great. Some dust still fell to the bottom, but not much. My new Unisaw has more collected on the baffle than I had in the bottom on the old one. When you choke off the air you won't get much dust collected.

[Barry Beech]

Thanks for the suggestions. I've been thinking pretty hard about it, to the point my brain hurts ;) . What do ya'll think about enclosing the motor cover with a ramp angled to the saw and then another ramp angled to the DC fitting? Maybe use hard board? I'm not too keen on the idea of cutting a hole in the saw. :eek:

One thing I didn't tell ya'll is I'm working on in 2 car garage and I have to move all my equipment everytime I work on anything and then put it all back. For now the DC will be mobile and moved between machines. We are planning on moving with in the next year or so and everything will be stationary after that (hopefully!!!).


Barry

[Bart Leetch]

"I've been thinking pretty hard about it, to the point my brain hurts."

Barry your thinking to hard & making it to complicated. Make a sloped shelf from side to side or front to back & make an opening for the DC pickup & enjoy using it.

I chose to put my pick on the right side because it makes it easier to mount & use the blast gate.

[Norman Hitt]

Barry, I can see absolutely "No Reason" not to cut a hole in the cabinet, after all, all the new saws have a hole cut in them for a DC outlet. The only thing I would do different from the current models is to make the outlet a 6" diameter instead of 4". I certainly wouldn't cut a hole in the motor cover for the DC outlet, (maybe a small air inlet hole to give the motor some additional cooling), and to keep the sawdust pulled out of the motor area. If you look up Terry Hatfield's site, I think he still has pics of how he cut out and replaced a 4" outlet with a 6" outlet on his Grizzly.

Think "Air Flow" with the least resistance...........ie; Inlet air from high on the front side of the saw, then slanting down and back, flowing by the saw blade, (where the dust is) and on down to the outlet low in the center of the rear of the saw cabinet. This gives the air flow a straight shot from inlet to outlet, which it the shortest path of least resistance of any place on the saw.

I also would NOT cover up the bevel arc, because when a ZCI is used, or even just when a board is going across the saw, it cuts off almost every bit of airflow through the table top, and for the sawdust to keep moving, you must have adequate air for it to flow. You can, and probably should, close up any air openings on the rear of the saw,( such as between the cabinet and the top), but keep plenty of air moving on the path described above so it can pick up the sawdust as it is being flung off the blade toward the bottom and back of the saw, where the DC outlet should be. A slanted "V" shaped ramp from high at the front center and sloped down to the DC outlet, and sloped up on the sides would help guide the air and sawdust very effectively.

I know there are conflicting suggestions, but hopefully some of this will make sense and be helpful to you.