Dust collection for small basement "shop"

[Randall Hansen]

I'm thinking of getting a TS in the near future (Sawstop contractor), and need some dust collection advice. I've read a lot here this weekend, but still have questions.

Question #1 (to which I'm sure the answer is "no"): will my Fein Turbo I be enough to keep up with a Sawstop contractor saw? I've read here that a cabinet saw needs about 600cfm of dust collection; I can't imagine the contractor saw needs much less. The Fein supposedly pulls 116cfm.

Question #2: what's my next best step? The TS will be the only tool I have which generates a non-trivial amount of dust. After that I won't have room for another big, dusty tool, anyway . Bill Pentz's dust collection research is really informative, but I've never thought much about dust collection until recently, and still feel like I'm drowning in information.

Context: I have about 400sf of our basement set aside for my shop (it's not enclosed, but that's on my list, too). I've done a lot of work down there (all our kitchen cabinets, numerous builtins). I've kept things relatively clean by keeping as much as possible hooked up to a Fein Turbo I, but that still leaves a lot to be desired. I'm realizing more and more that I'm hitting my limit of efficiency and precision with the Festool TS55. It's brilliant for sheet goods, but no fun at all for ripping 1" strips out of 11" CVG fir :/

[Jim Becker]

Randal, you will not likely get good results with the vac for this tool...the air flow requirements are way in excess of what a vac can supply. The very nature of a "contractors' style saw" makes dust collection difficult, although if SS put the blade shroud in like they have on their larger saw, that will help greatly.

Consider at least a reasonably sized single stage DC with a canister filter for this application. If you need to run it on 120v, then you'll be limited to a typical 1.5hp setup. If you have 240v available, you can move into the slightly larger 2hp setup with a little bigger impeller and get better performance.

[Tom Hargrove]

Randall -

In my experience, good dust collection for a contractor saw is somewhat more difficult than a cabinet saw due to the open base. Even with a shroud around the blade, some provision needs to be made to collect the dust that escapes the shroud. This can be a substantial amount of material, and usually contains the finer and more harmful dust. My saw has a shroud around the blade with a provision for a shop vac. The shop vac works to some degree, but still leaves lots of stuff floating around.

If you don't plan to have any machinery that makes waste material in quantity, such as a jointer or planer, I think you can get by with a smaller (600 CFM) single stage collector. I closed up the bottom of my saw, with a fitting for a four inch hose. I have a 600 CFM (rated) collector, and it works quite well. When I use the factory throat plate, very little sawdust escapes the airflow. When I use zero clearance throat plates, some dust remains on the table. However, the amount is a fraction of what was left when I used a shop vac.

The other bonus with a dust collector is capacity. Shop vacs need to be emptied frequently, and the filter cleaned often or the CFM moving through the hose drops off significantly. Not so with collectors, which have much larger "storage" capacity.

However, if you expand and get other machines, I agree with Jim - a collector with higher CFM capacity will be necessary.

[Prashun Patel]

Fein? Sawstop? Sounds like you're willing to spend for the good stuff...

Use your Fein for your router and sander and miter saw. For a tablesaw you need more cowbell!

You might look into Clearvue cyclones.

Alternatively, a good single stage can be had for much less. Regardless, use a 1micron filter.

[Mark Patoka]

My older Sears contractor TS is the one tool I haven't modified to hook up to my single stage DC yet. I do use one of those canvas bags that snaps underneath which catches a lot and I cut out some 1/8" plywood to enclose as much of the back as I could where it really spits out the dust. Majority of the dust now comes from above. I've considered getting one of those overarm guards with DC hose.

Back to your question, not familiar with the Fein vac but I don't think it will have enough suction. A DC is really what you need for adequate collection in this case.

[Hank Knight]

Randall,

I have a very disorganized dust collection system in my small basement shop. I use a dedicated, cheap no-name vac for my radial arm saw, nothing on my table saw, lathe or drill press and a Fein Turbo III on my Inca jointer/planer and bandsaw. The jointer/planer and my bandsaw are located near each other so I can move the vac hose from one to the other - a very inconvenient arrangement. The Fein Turbo III captures about 90% of the chips from the jointer/planer and <50% of the sawdust from the bandsaw. The dust collection hood is very close to the knives on the Inca, so the Fein doesn't have to move much air to capture the chips. On the other hand, the bandsaw has lots of air space in the frame so an efficient dust collector for it needs to move lots of air. The Fein just can't do it. My guess is that would be the case with using a vac to collect dust from a table saw: better than nothing, but not much. Also, the Turbo III's capacity is pretty good for a vac, but small for a dust collector, so emptying often is a must and an inconvenient pain - especially with a high volume chip producer like the planer. Finally, you need to move a lot of air to capture the really fine wood dust at the source. The Fein doesn't do that; it only captures the big stuff. It's the fine dust that's harmful so using a vac for a dust collector is not a real great way to protect your lungs. Don't get me wrong, the Fein is a great vac, but it was not not designed or intended to be a dust collector. For all of the above reasons, I'm saving my pennies for a cyclone.

My $.02

Hank