SawStop & Excalibur Over-arm Blade Cover

[Phil Winn]

I am finally upgrading the Dust Collection to the new tools....including the
SawStop....does the SawStop cabinet saw "need" the Excalibur? Or does the
SawStop dust collection system work well without it? Also, does the
Excalibur fit on the SawStop with the longer extension table? From the blade
to the right is 62"..the maximum for the Excalibur is also 62"....or the ceiling mount?
Thanks,
Phil

[JayStPeter]

If I was you I'd just wait on the overhead guard setup. My experience is that an overhead guard is a kind of a pain in the butt while provinding a marginal increase in dust collection. If the SS guard works well as a guard, you can see how the changeover from guard to riving knife is and how the DC with just the guard is. Heck, to me one of the things that makes the SS worth the extra money is the fact that you don't have to spend extra money on overhead guards and splitters.

Jay

[Michael Ballent]

I have been thinking about the overarm guard as well, but with the guard basically hugging the blade it does a pretty good of controlling most of the dust. But I do have a really large cooler sitting behind me pushing most of the dust that does escape outside of the garage. I was making some dados this weekend and there was almost nothing getting out. I have yet to use the riving knife, just the guard with the kick-back pawls removed.

[Jay Knepper]

I would talk to SawStop before going the overhead guard route. Roy Wall sent me some pictures from Steve Gass of a prototype guard with provision for dust collection. It looks like it will work well, should be cheap, and should be much less of a hassle to use than an Excalibur-type of guard. I'll certainly be looking at getting one if/when it goes into production.

[Michael Ballent]

Well that is something that I was not aware of... Was there any indication as to when it could be available? I would love to just upgrade/retrofit the existing guard, the other option I was looking at was to do the drill thing and attach a vacuum port, but an OEM solution would be better.

[Don Frambach]

I just received my SawStop with the 52" fence. I used an Excalibur over arm blade cover on my Contractor's saw (which is in the process of being retired as a set up my SawStop.) I plan to mount the Excalibur blade cover on my SawStop (I'm pretty sure it's going to fit with a few inches to spare). I'll post pictures when I'm done.