Dustopper and Rockler Dust Right for Small Lathe?

[Steve H Graham]

I stuck my small Harbor Freight lathe on a little Husky cabinet. Now I want to reduce the dust.

I found a couple of interesting products. One is the Dustopper. This is a lid that goes on a 5-gallon bucket. You suck dust through it, and it falls to the bottom. I am thinking of rigging it up with a 5-HP (yes, I know it's not really 5) shop vac and a Rockler Dust Right scoop, to make turning little things somewhat less dusty. I figure I can cut holes in the cabinet and run the hose out the side.

I'm wondering if anyone here has tried a small shop vac with the Dustopper or the Dust Right. I know this isn't a top-notch dust collector, but I was hoping it would work reasonably well for small items.

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[Bruce Page]

Steve, I can't speak to the Dust Right. I have & use the Duststopper with my Fein T3 vac. It does a decent job of separating chips, IMO. Others have had disappointing results. You will loose some of the vacuum's suction using it.

https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?272280-Shop-Project-%96-Dustopper&highlight=

[Steve H Graham]

I guess I can try it without cutting the cabinet and see what happens.

[Stan Calow]

My two cents. I have a Duststopper as well as a Dust Deputy, using shop vacs, but at my tablesaw and router. They work fine, but on a lathe I would wonder about having enough CFM to suck up the dust and shavings from a big scoop area you would need at a lathe. I have a small dust collector for my mini lathe with four inch hose and a big mouth scoop, and a lot of stuff still doesnt get caught. A shop vac with small 2-2 1/2" hose I would think wouldn't be enough.

[Brice Rogers]

I have a 2 HP dust collector with a Thien baffle. It works GREAT at pulling in power sanding dust from my lathe. But it doesn't do a whole lot for large chips.

[Alex Zeller]

I recently bought a 1hp dust collector from Harbor freight for a little over $100 (with a 25% off coupon). It's portable and works great with both the band saw and table saw. I used some duct work to connect to a register from Lowes and hang it behind the lathe to suck in the dust. It doesn't do much for the shavings as they fly where they want but for sanding on the lathe I think it helps (I still wear a mask). It's a lot quieter than a shop vac and I think it moves more air. The only issue I had was the guards inside the inlet and outlet are made out of plastic and are extremely restrictive. I had to remove them. You could easily just cut two 4" holes on the top of a cover on a 5 gallon pail to catch chips. Between the fact that a shop vac is noisy and it's not designed to move a lot of air (the 1hp HF dust collector will move 3x what a shop vac will) I would seriously think about not spending time and money on something that's going to provide minimal results.