sawstop over arm dust collection question

[joseph f merz]

have not been impressed with over arm dust collection on my sawstop. thought maybe my DC lacked power so i hooked up a small shop vac to the over arm blade guard . strange but seems when shaving edge of board less dust is picked up . I feel like this over arm could be improved . Has anyone else fiddled/changed it ? any advise

[Keith Hankins]

Ok you need good DC first. If you are talking about doing a crosscut or rip, with just shaving off the edge you will get some that is missed its just unavoidable. To improve the pickup someone recommended that instead of the overarm being 90 degrees push it away (more like 125 - 130 degrees). I found that helped a lot.

I also got rid of that stupid connector to the rear of the saw. Changed to more gentle sweep.

Here is a link to a pic of my setup.
https://flic.kr/p/st8r3w

[Duncan Foster]

Like Keith said Moving the over arm back will really help.

[David Kumm]

Overhead collection is marginal at best. you realaly need a minimum of 3" or preferably 4" all the way into the guard. A traditional collector won't pull enough cfm through a smaller pipe to overcome the velocity of the dust trying to fly forward. I think Fastcap sells some brush material that has adhesive to stick around the bottom of a guard to help with the just taking an edge off problem. I have screwed brush material to the sides of a guard too and that helps but easy to chip out the plastic. The sharguard with a 4" port does a decent job put you will still get dust off the side on an edge cut. Dave

[Timothy Shouldice]

I've found with a through cut, that the overarm dust collection works quite well. However for cuts that are trimming, dust will fly out the side.

I think the design of the SS overarm dust collector is very dependant on the airflow of dust as generated by the blade and the internal structure of the guard to deflect the sawdust upwards into the guard where it is then sucked away. As others have mentioned, dust going out the side doesn't have enough CFM through the guard to suck it up.

[Peter Aeschliman]

My experience matches Timothy's. The dust collection is near 100% for all cuts except when shaving off an edge. Dust sprays everywhere when shaving off an edge.

I use my central dust collector for the small port and it works fine for all cuts except edge trimming. This is because they have designed the blade guard to utilize the turbulence coming off of the blade. If you were to disconnect your hose from the back of the blade guard when you make a cut, you'll see it in action: the dust will shoot out of the back of the blade guard. So you don't need massive CFM or static pressure to get the dust because it's naturally directed into the blade guard. A shop vac will definitely be better than a DC for the blade guard because of the higher static pressure, but I wouldn't expect it to be a massive improvement.

For edge trimming, I think it's just a flaw in sawstop's blade guard design. The front of the blade guard is one piece, so if the right side of the blade guard gets elevated by the workpiece, the left side of it gets elevated too, even if there isn't an offcut piece to support it. That gap between the table and the blade guard allows dust to not be directed into the blade guard in the same manner as with other cuts, partly because of the gap, and partly due to the different tangent on which the dust comes off of the blade.

I don't see more suction solving that problem- it's just a flaw in the design. I imagine you could rig up a magnet-mounted hose next to the blade guard if it's a problem for you. It bothers me quite a bit (especially when cutting harsher materials, like MDF or exotics, or walnut), but not enough to get me off my lazy butt to do anything about it. :)

[joseph f merz]

i saw an older thred where a magnetic scoop was used to catch the dust that is thrown forward on edge cuts .seems a good idea to try next .thankyou for all the input

[Andrew Pitonyak]

I've found with a through cut, that the overarm dust collection works quite well. However for cuts that are trimming, dust will fly out the side.

I think the design of the SS overarm dust collector is very dependant on the airflow of dust as generated by the blade and the internal structure of the guard to deflect the sawdust upwards into the guard where it is then sucked away. As others have mentioned, dust going out the side doesn't have enough CFM through the guard to suck it up.

+2 on this. If the edges of the guard are both sitting on something, then the dust is captured and contained. If not, it just sprays forward.

[Keith Pitman]

Bringing up this old thread again. I've just set up my Sawstop PCS, so I'm looking at a lot of things especially about dust collection. As others have suggested, I replaced the 90-degree connection Sawstop supplies with one with 45-degree connection for the overarm hose. That helped significantly. I also picked up a suggestion somewhere on the internet to put a blast gate at the back of the saw to balance the suction between the saw cabinet and the hose to the blade guard. This seems to work very well. The suction at the small hose at the blade guard went up noticably and there seems to be no adverse reduction in the suction from the cabinet.

[John K Jordan]

...I imagine you could rig up a magnet-mounted hose next to the blade guard ...

That's exactly what I did to combat the dust from skimming cuts on my big bandsaw. I used a flexible 4" hose and fastened a strong 1" magnet to the lip with a machine screw. It helps a lot but it's still not perfect. It's easy to move out of the way when not needed. Haven't thought about using one on the table saw.

JKJ

[Mike Chalmers]

+2 on this. If the edges of the guard are both sitting on something, then the dust is captured and contained. If not, it just sprays forward.+3. I have a Shark Guard with a 2" hose to a beefy Ridgid Shop Vac (6.5 hp). I do not subscribe to the theory that a 4" to the Dust Collector is superior. It would work better if the two sides were independent. I want to try the addition of the brush material, but I don't think it will actually divert the spray to the vacuum, but, it will contain it somewhat.

[Larry Frank]

Mine works well except for when taking edge cuts. My Dust collector works fine with it...but it is a5 hp model.

[Andrew J. Coholic]

I've been using a 5hp saw stop saw in my shop since Jan 2011. Prob cut close to 40,000 bf of hardwood on it in that time.

I love the stock guard. I have a 7.5 hp dc about 50 feet of 5" pipe away from the saw. I don't get much dust coming off the blade. The side plates that drop down work well.

For edge cuts that don't leave any waste, there is a really easy way to control the errant dust. I just grab I piece of whatever I'm ripping and lay it on the saw to the left of the blade. Maybe 1/8" to 1/4" away from the blade. Just sits on the table under the guard. Works great to prevent the dust from going sideways.

The only time I have issues is when ripping really stringy wood. The rear chute sometimes gets clogged if you push the saw hard. But doesn't happen too often.

[Ben Rivel]

FWIW since I didnt see it mentioned in this thread, the SawStop overarm dust collector is designed to be long enough to work with the 52" setup. If you have the 36" the hoses and top part of the overarm are too long and thats why people push the arm back in order to straighten the hose that connects to the blade guard out a bit. I ended up fixed this problem but shortening both the hoses and the metal pipe for a cleaner straighter run on my PSC 36". Works better than swinging the overarm backwards did and looks like the overarm fits the 36" better too. Easy to do too with a utility knife to cut down the hose after unscrewing the connectors and a hacksaw and file for the metal pipe.

[Kevin Womer]

Ok you need good DC first. If you are talking about doing a crosscut or rip, with just shaving off the edge you will get some that is missed its just unavoidable. To improve the pickup someone recommended that instead of the overarm being 90 degrees push it away (more like 125 - 130 degrees). I found that helped a lot. I also got rid of that stupid connector to the rear of the saw. Changed to more gentle sweep.Here is a link to a pic of my setup. https://flic.kr/p/st8r3wKeith,Thanks for posting this, I have thought about changing mine as well. Glade to see it does help.ni'm gonna give it a try!

[Todd Hyman]

+3. I have a Shark Guard with a 2" hose to a beefy Ridgid Shop Vac (6.5 hp). I do not subscribe to the theory that a 4" to the Dust Collector is superior. It would work better if the two sides were independent. I want to try the addition of the brush material, but I don't think it will actually divert the spray to the vacuum, but, it will contain it somewhat.

This is what I did and it works pretty well. The brush material is a little stiff but it has loosened up over time.