John Miliunas
08-10-2003, 12:21 AM
Been doing a fair amount of re-sawing and/or resizing on the BS of late. It's a 14" Jet w/riser. It's been a long time since I gave up on the stock DC collector on it (what a joke!). I had been just kind of jerry-rigging my 4" hose above the OEM unit and pointing it toward the guides. Still, especially with heavier use, such as resewing, it was pretty much a lost cause. Even with my pretty powerful air cleaner running, I'd get a pretty even coat of fine dust all over the shop. In reading about it, I found that I'm not at all alone in this situation. Many folks have just chosen to live with it, not wanting to cut into their lower wheel cover. I wasn't too hot with that idea either, but finally gave in. Below are the results of what I came up with.
The 4" angled port came by way of the local Woodcraft. I covered the entire area with masking tape for clearer vision of my marks for the hole and to help prevent scratches from the sole of the jigsaw. I decided on the configuration of the port, drew my pencil line on the tape and got going on it. (Needless to say, I had the door removed while doing all this! Dha!) Anyhow, I drilled a couple holes and elongated them to fit my jigsaw blade in and went at it. Quite painless, actually. Once the chunk was removed, a rounded bastard file took care of sharp edges and general cleanup.
I planted the port on there, marked my holes for mounting it and center-punched them. Once the holes were drilled, I took some hot-melt glue and made two passes around the perimeter of the port, in order to help seal it, especially as the wheel door is not completely flat. Screwed the port on and re-attached it to the BS.
Results? In a word: Fantastic! The whole process took well under a half an hour and I could not hardly be happier! In the one pic, you may note some white material over where the "NOTICE" sticker is. That's actually part of a thin vinyl magnetic sheet, which I notched out to fit around the riser guard and fold over the door and rear cast iron piece. That was a source for a LOT of air loss and this takes care of it very effectively. One of the pictures posted shows the BS with some sawdust on it. This is pretty much the TOTAL of any "spillover" and I don't think that can be helped, as that's the sawdust being carried along by the piece. I had cut a few board-feet before taking the pic.
So, for any of you guys with the same problem, but leary to cut up your wheel cover, I'm here to say that if *I* can do it, then I believe 99.8% of you folks can, too! If you should decide to do so, drop us a line and let us know how it worked for you. :cool:
The 4" angled port came by way of the local Woodcraft. I covered the entire area with masking tape for clearer vision of my marks for the hole and to help prevent scratches from the sole of the jigsaw. I decided on the configuration of the port, drew my pencil line on the tape and got going on it. (Needless to say, I had the door removed while doing all this! Dha!) Anyhow, I drilled a couple holes and elongated them to fit my jigsaw blade in and went at it. Quite painless, actually. Once the chunk was removed, a rounded bastard file took care of sharp edges and general cleanup.
I planted the port on there, marked my holes for mounting it and center-punched them. Once the holes were drilled, I took some hot-melt glue and made two passes around the perimeter of the port, in order to help seal it, especially as the wheel door is not completely flat. Screwed the port on and re-attached it to the BS.
Results? In a word: Fantastic! The whole process took well under a half an hour and I could not hardly be happier! In the one pic, you may note some white material over where the "NOTICE" sticker is. That's actually part of a thin vinyl magnetic sheet, which I notched out to fit around the riser guard and fold over the door and rear cast iron piece. That was a source for a LOT of air loss and this takes care of it very effectively. One of the pictures posted shows the BS with some sawdust on it. This is pretty much the TOTAL of any "spillover" and I don't think that can be helped, as that's the sawdust being carried along by the piece. I had cut a few board-feet before taking the pic.
So, for any of you guys with the same problem, but leary to cut up your wheel cover, I'm here to say that if *I* can do it, then I believe 99.8% of you folks can, too! If you should decide to do so, drop us a line and let us know how it worked for you. :cool: