Bandsaw gloat

[Paul Williams]

Last month I posted asking about band saws. I was looking at the JET 14 inch with the frame built so as to not need a riser block, and the Ricon 10-325 now 10-326 with better guides. I ended up purchasing a Laguna 12BX from Woodcraft. The vortex strikes again.

335691335692

Thanks for all of your input.
Now I need to upgrade my dust collection. I don't think my shop vac is going to keep up.

[Geoff Whaling]

Nice setup! Looks to have a lot of commonality to the Woodfast / Rikon band saws. My Woodfast BS500 has the same fence design, not easy to adjust for band saw drift. It will be interesting to hear your review on its dust collection performance. The Woodfast still accumulates a fair bit of saw dust from sawing dry wood in the lower cabinet and does not capture the saw dust from just under the throat plate all that well.

[Paul Williams]

This saw has 4 inch dust ports just below the table angled upwards and another at the bottom of the base. Both are in line vertically with the blade. I have my shop vac hooked to the top port. It catches a lot of dust, but I don't think it moves enough air to really do the job. I'm thinking of making a 650 to 800 cfm cyclone dedicated to the saw.

[Bob Bouis]

Nice looking little saw. It looks like it has many design features of the larger Italian bandsaws.

I finally gave up on my harbor freight 14" bs and got a new one too. Picked it up last week actually--just wish I had time to play with it.

[Peter Blair]

Paul I bought the 14" SUV and have never looked back. I just love it but I did make a couple of changes.
1. in the 14" there is a sloped slot just under the blade aligned with the upper dust port. Here i installed a piece of plywood to sort of aid the dust into the port. It works but way better once I put a little piece of shiny laminate on it.
2. I have only a 4" dust extractor hooked up to both ports and as you say the volume isn't quite good enough so I closed off half of the lower port with shiny aluminum tape.
3. I also covered the bend in the bottom of the door to prevent dust from accumulating there.
The dust collection works pretty well now especially with dry wood. I do believe it is nearly impossible to eliminate build-up of shavings when sawing a large log with the grain as the long strings seem to get caught in lots of places but with the existing set-up I seldom have to open the machine to remove the dust.

[Tom Albrecht]

Last month I posted asking about band saws. I was looking at the JET 14 inch with the frame built so as to not need a riser block, and the Ricon 10-325 now 10-326 with better guides. I ended up purchasing a Laguna 12BX from Woodcraft. The vortex strikes again.

335691335692

Thanks for all of your input.
Now I need to upgrade my dust collection. I don't think my shop vac is going to keep up.

I did the same research and ended up with the Laguna BX as well. (I wrote a review of it for Craft Supplies). And, I did end up upgrading my dust collector as well with an Oneida V-3000. With the dust collector running and connected to the two Laguna ports, I can't open the lower wheel door on the saw-- it's a great system.
Now I'm trying to come up with a dust hood that has a 5" port for the lathe.

[John K Jordan]

This saw has 4 inch dust ports just below the table angled upwards and another at the bottom of the base. Both are in line vertically with the blade. I have my shop vac hooked to the top port. It catches a lot of dust, but I don't think it moves enough air to really do the job. I'm thinking of making a 650 to 800 cfm cyclone dedicated to the saw.

Paul,

The bandsaw I use the most is an 18" Rikon with similar dust collection ports which looks a lot like yours. Just my experience, but I now get almost no dust around the saw and none in the base.

I wonder if yours is like mine just under the table: the lower guides are open and the blade goes through a slot into a chamber where the 4" angled port is mounted.

If so, the thing that helped the most was a cardboard shroud 3/4 way around the lower guides under the table. I hold this on with magnets. This collects all the dust that used to spray out onto the floor. I connected a 4" flex duct to both the bottom port in the base and the angled port on the side.

In addition, I use a third 4" piece of flex duct, the kind that stays where you put it, to the top of the table. Hold this in position with a magnet very close to the blade when I'm doing "skimming" cuts which typically sprays a lot of dust to the side. Otherwise, the magnet holds the top of this duct just off the table on the back right, out of the way.

I can't imagine my shop vac being sufficient for the bandsaw - the cyclone should make a big difference. When I built this shop I installed a 5hp Clearvue cyclone and ran 6" PVC to the machines.

JKJ

[Paul Williams]

Thanks for all of the input. I am enjoying the saw. It came with a plastic piece that I believe is the same as Pete described. My next step is to connect to my small 1 HP dust collector with 4 inch tube. My shop vac does a reasonable job but misses a lot of sawdust. Not sure that will be enough air volume but I need to come up with a way to suck on both ports. There is an area behind the lower guides that collects dust. I will fool around with a shroud like John described and see what I can gain there. There also seems to be quite a bit of dust on the table, so I will probably end up fitting something to hold a hose in that area. I can see where the vortex is going to require a little more feeding before this is over.

[Prashun Patel]

If your goal is to just reduce the dust on the floor, then your 1hp will be fine.
I suggest though, that if you are finding performance to be substandard, don't go trying to put lipstick on the pig by preseparating. Get a bigger unit.