SCM slider blade guard

[Jeff Roltgen]

The original orange one is not impressive. After close to a year of tolerating it, I'm ready for a replacement, but still no standouts for aftermarket. Biggest question for those with a slider, does (or should?) the hood/guard reach back enough to cover the scoring blade, or am I severely limiting my options by thinking it should be large enough to do so?

In consideration:
Harvey - absolutely beautiful, but seems too small for even the 12" blade, never mind the scorer
Grizzly- Shop Fox with the larger bubble shaped guard seems okay - any users of it?
Grizzly - has an odd looking one they claim comes from Germany, limited to stock on hand. Looks like the one on a Martin, as well as the offerings in another thread (about the jointer guards) from the German Sitec/Panhans group. https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?300365-Segmented-jointer-guard
Grizzly - has a Euro-style sliding saw with a good looking over-arm setup - checked out buying it as a full on "replacement part" and sure enough, can be done, but closer to $1,300 and indication that it's backordered. In that case, I probably should just go back to my SCM dealer to check on options straight from them...

Some great threads here recently on this topic discussed homemade units hung from the ceiling, but in my shop that's 16 feet. Seems an over-arm is the better direction in this case, so hope to hear from others with slider and over arm setup.

Again, at very least, am I off-base thinking it should cover the scoring blade?

jeff

[Jim Becker]

I'll be considering the stand-alone whitish overarm collection guard from Grizzly for this for my new SC3C once I have the shop completed and the machine moved in. I like the fact that it's stand alone which means it will be easy to move out of the way for "those times" when it might interfere with some particular task and that it has a 4" port which is not unlike the Excalibur overarm collection guard I had on the cabinet saw I owned years ago.

I'm not concerned about covering the scoring blade as I use it rarely and it's direction of rotation doesn't increase material being thrown. An overhead guard that covers both a big main blade and a scoring blade would be "pretty large".

[Steve Wurster]

I have the Harvey "mounted" to my Hammer K3 slider. I don't remember if I have posted any pictures of how it's mounted, but because it's a "single foot" unit and not standalone it requires bolting it to something. If you go with this model then I'm sure you can figure out a way to make it work on your saw.

After having this for close to a year now I can provide the following observations:


The unit is beautiful, well made, very adjustable, and heavy. It's also a bit expensive.
I really like how the hood effortlessly raises up when a piece is slid under it.
The guard is big enough to cover a 12" blade, but not big enough to cover the scoring blade as well. That's okay for me though as I really don't use the scoring blade, and also because I can't use the scoring blade and a 12" blade at the same time on my saw anyway.
The narrow shields on the hood can be removed and replaced with a single "wide" one so that you can use it when the blade is beveled. I really like that concept (although I don't think I've done any beveled cuts since I've owned this so I just leave the two "narrow" shields on all the time).
The dust hood and arm can be rotated out of the way (toward the operator) when needed. That requires loosening a handle at the vertical support post. That handle is a little tough to tighten and therefore a little tough to loosen. I use a rubber mallet to assist.
The dust collection is only adequate, at least in my setup (I have a "circular" route from the DC to my saw due to my small basement setup and I'm sure that kills a lot of my performance). The support arm accepts a 4" hose via an adapter, but then immediately drops down to ~3" because that's the size of the support arm. And since the line connects at a 90 degree angle to the hood you lose some airflow there as well. The hood will pick up most dust when doing fully captured rip cuts, while missing most of the dust when making a cut on the edge of a board (that's typical for any setup though). Everything else is just okay, and I don't have the "problem" of small offcuts being picked up (because the CFM just isn't adequate). Because of the not-so-great dust collection I am tempted to just run a 4" hose on top of the support arm and see how that works.

[Joe Calhoon]

Jeff, I don’t know if I had the guard on my T17 while you were here. It works really well. The only downside is it requires a custom bracket to hold it. It mounts to a 25mm round rod. I had a metalworking friend make the mounting structure and bought some 25mm round stock from McMaster that he welded to the support. It is heavy and styled after what the original looked like. The guard is Suva brand and large enough to cover a 18” blade and would also cover a scoring blade if desired. It has a lot of adjustment laterally over the blade.
the Harvey looks good except for the small size. I probably would have gone that direction if I had known about it at the time. It would have been a lot easier to mount. I also liked the Panhans one but the shipping from Germany was as much as the guard.
I ended up buying this from Scott and Sargent. They were almost half the price of buying directly from Suva and shipping was reasonable.
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[Orlyn Gaddis]

I have been using a Shark Guard on my Minimax SC4 for around 10 years. It does cover the scoring blade which I think is absolutely necessary. I almost always use the scoring blade and the scoring blade seems like the most likely overlooked hazard on the saw. The hood/guard is easily removable. Dust collection works fine since the hood rides right on the work piece minimizing gaps.

[johnny means]

I've seen a lot of guys "dust off" a running scoring blade. It's never lead to any serious injuries, but it appears to be a really easy mistake to make.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

If you want something with a smaller footprint, the one that came with my Felder is pretty darn good. Mounts to the riving knife, so it'd probably fit others too. I don't have first hand experience with a shark guard, but it's pretty similar. The felder riving knife has two sets of slots so you can cover the scoring blade (mostly) or not, your choice. It could be used on any any riving knife I'd think, might have to add a hole or something.

[mark mcfarlane]

I'm extremely happy with the SharkGuard on my Minimax slider. Thoughtfully designed and well built. Takes 1 second to remove.

It looks like they made a design refinement since I bought mine 5 years ago. https://www.thesharkguard.com/determine-dust-port-size/

I went for the 4" port but in retrospect a smaller port would have probably worked fine. I have to choke off the 4" blast gate mounted right above the SharkGuard to keep the DC from lifting large offcuts.

I have Norfab ductwork coming down from the ceiling. I flip off the SharkGuard and swing the whole assembly away in the rare case I don't want the SharkGuard over the blade, like yesterday when I was cutting the edge on a table top vertically on the slider.

[Jim OConnor]

Mark,
can you post a couple of pictures of your set up? I also have Norfab pipe and have been thinking about going to an overhead design on my slider. There are a variety of things I don’t like about having the guard mounted to the tubing knife. Many Thanks!!!

[Warren Lake]

there is some percent collected below the table and above. Some of those amounts may vary depending on the blade height etc. The small SCM I added with only a 2 hp dust collector has amazing under table dust collection. One day forgot to hook up the dust pipe and the saw was shooting the dust out six feet from the back of the saw. After always having cabinet saws that was pretty impressive. Im thinking under table is going to collect at least 80 percent but likely more.

[mark mcfarlane]

1) SharkGuard in normal position, covers scoring blade. 2) SharkGuard in UP position. Lift front of SharkGuard and push back on slot - nothing to loosen. lets you see exact cut line. 3 and 4) SharkGuard pushed out of the way. Norfab pipe keeps the SharkGuard out of the way. 5) Blast gate 'control center' controls all the blast gates except the bandsaw and the overhead SharkGuard. The large 6" pipe goes under the slab and serves the slider/jointer/planer/shaper. 6) Blast gate on top of SharkGuard.

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[Jim OConnor]

Thanks Mark!

[Michael Drew]

I just ordered the Grizzly. Probably be a couple weeks before I can get to installing it. I intend to mount it to a mobile base I'm in the process of building. I tried to order the King Excelsior XL-1014 from Canada, but it cost about half the cost of the guard to ship it to me, so the supplier cancelled my order and refunding my PP account (didn't even ask).

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Here is the Felder guard I mentioned earlier. It's good enough that I always run the saw with it on. I just have the vacuum hose plumbed into the DC. Catches all the fines, a few bigger chips escape. I suppose a higher pressure vacuum would catch more but I don't think it's necessary in my shop. Guard is dead simple to adjust as you want, the adjustable tension on the riving knife makes it stay put, or ride over the stock, your choice. Like I said earlier, would be easy to adapt to other saws.

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[Lisa Starr]

I used a SharkGuard and mounted it overhead on my SC2C. It can cover both a 12" blade and the scoring blade when I adjust it that way.
https://sawmillcreek.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=467143&d=1635431783

[Jeff Roltgen]

Thanks for the highly detailed images. Leaning towards the shark, now that I see riving knife mount is a possibility. Thanks for the photo layout, Mark. Have message in to Shark to verify their product recommendation for my model, so hopefully Mark's example of mount is still available.

Again, those ceiling mounts like yours, Lisa are awfully cool, but with a 16' high ceiling, gonna be hard to make it stable.
Think Mark's setup is going to be best bet for my layout. Glad to get away from the expense and time to install an arm, only to have hose reduced to 2-3". Did an experiment with my OEM with a 4" adapted down right at the 2.25" fitting, and found an amazing amount of difference in efficacy, even for that original orange thing, so sticking with that diameter.

Steve's option probably works just as well, I'm just trying to keep it integrated with the main DC. A 4-6 foot run of 2.25 hose severely chokes even a 5HP 3phase system, where the higher velocity of a shop vac performs way better.