Best option for a small dust collector? Clear Vue?

[Aaron Buys]

I think I'm going to go ahead and take the time to put up a wall between where my new lathe will be and the rest of my storage room...but now I need to decide on dust collection. At first I was just going to wander to my local woodworking store and see what I can afford but I just finished reading some of Bill Pentz's (sp?) site so I am a little bewildered. It seems the best route is to run a cyclone collection system and vent the air out of the area completely (do I have this right?) I have a small daylight window just above where the lathe will be so I am pretty confident I can vent air out of that (probably swap the window out for some plexiglass and add a port for some tubing.) Bill has a link to the Clear Vue cyclones on his site and I see they have a small unit which attaches to a vac. Does anybody have any experience with these?

[Jim Becker]

Aaron...you live in Michigan. You really don't want to be venting outdoors, at least in the winter, as you need to bring the same amount of outside air back into your shop. Burrrrrrrr!

If you are just doing chip and dust collection for a lathe, a small DC with a canister filter and a trash-can pre-separator might be an alternative choice for you. Remember, aside from running it during sanding, you're really only going to be using it to sweep the floor relative to turning. You will find it nearly impossible to collect chips/shavings while you are actually cutting them as they come towards you, not away.

[Aaron Buys]

Never thought about the air exchange. =) Anything you could recommend that would meet my needs?

[Bart Leetch]

Buy a good shop Vacuum wear a Dust Bee Gone mask.

As seen here...

http://www.dustbeegone.com/dustmask.html

You could also buy or build a air cleaner to put on the ceiling.

As seen here...

http://www.amazon.com/708620B-AFS-10.../dp/B00004R9LO

Works for me.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Aaron - I use a dust control system just like the one Jim mentioned.

I have a small Jet 650 connected to a 30 gallon trash pre-separator and find that it works fairly well. I connect the dust hose close to the tool rest and find that it works fairly well when doing spindle work or sanding.

Bowls on the other hand throw chips all over the place and have found it best to just let them fly and clean up after the fact. It does work when I am sanding bowls.

One caution - if you do turn any green wood and use the dust collection system just be aware that it will rapidly clog whatever filter you are using. Cleaning a filter bag that has very fine dust dried onto and in the fabric can be ... well, challenging. I usually end up rapping it against a tree for 20 minutes to get rid of the caked dust. Gets old when you end up doing that once a week or more!!!