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Show your dust collection system!
So what dust collection do you have? How do you like your system? any thoughts of change or upgrade?

David

got a big cyclone, i'd show you pics but i'm in the process of hesh proofing my shop. i'm worried about giving him a heart attack if posting pics before i can get it organised

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Frank

That reminds me - where could I find an iron lung?

I use my trusty Festool CT-22 HEPA 134 CFM vac and it works great. Because this thing is HEPA rated it does not just strain the dust and puke the fine particles back out into my shop - it catches them in a bag.

Although this is a very small system as dust collection goes if you set yourself up to collect the dust at the source it works great. I can plug the Festool into all of my power tools and even when hand sanding I clamp the hose on the bench near where I am working, put on my noise eliminating headphones and Bob's my uncle.....



Last Friday I thickness sanded a bunch of tops with the Festool plugged into the Performax and virtually no dust escaped into the shop!

When I really mess up the place I clean it all up with the vac and then turn on my Jet air cleaner, set the timer for 2 hours and leave the shop. This thing is powerful enough that it makes all of the lights start swinging back and forth.....

This is what I have so far. I'm liking it a lot so far but I don't have much to compare it to. The only thing I had to filter the air before was my lungs and I like this way better.

Danny

Heshie .. maybe you could get a nice blue dress for that ....

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Coach, that's funny

I have a home brew 1200 CFM air cleaner and a 1hp 650 CFM DC connected to my drum sander.

I have the air cleaner on any time I run a tool that makes saw dust. I also wear a dust mask when sanding with my ROS. The DC gets approximatly 95% of the dust from the drum sander and the air cleaner gets the rest.

I honestly think an air cleaner is just as important if not more important than the DC as you don't want all those fine particulate hanging in the air when you're working.

I have plans for a cyclone and plan to build that in the next year or so. Then I will run some ducting to all the other machines in the shop, but for now, I just hook the DC up to the drum sander.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

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Danny, I'm jealous

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My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

I completely agree Rod my friend!

All I got is a small shop vac. I'm not even sure how to hook them up half the time since if I was using a drum sander I could stick the hose right next to the drum and it will pull the dusts out, but when using the safety planer the thing throws particles in all direction and it was impossible to get the vacuum to pick up everything. It makes almost no difference in fact. I could use an air cleaner since my "shop" (I mean room) is dusty all the time even when im not working on anything.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

i use this bad boy.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/G0440/images/

as long as your shop isnt too large, its plenty powerful enough. i work in a three car garage and havent had any problems. inspired by an article in fine woodworking a while back entitled "shop built around an island," i have most of my machines placed right next to the cyclone. this makes for short piping and great dust collection.

also it comes with a remote, the filter is a breeze to clean, its rated at 0.2 microns, and i just really like grizzly.

question for hesh: seriously how do you get good dust collection with a 134 CFM rated DC?

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sweat the small stuff.

I've got pretty much the same set up as Danny. It took me a year to afford it and install it. I run it when I work and there is no dusty haze in the air. I love it even if it does take up a lot of space in my little shop. Of course, it's not near as pretty now

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I have a big 5HP two-canister General 2-stage and an air cleaner, but as of late I've been using the General just to suck out the particles in the air and I've been shoveling out most of the junk in the Fadal! When running necks, we need to shovel out the machine every four hours!

My biggest dust-collection disappointment is the dust port in the bottom/back of the Laguna 16HD...which makes it almost useless for anything but easing cleaning out the saw. It pulls in exactly none of the fine dust created when sawing.

One of the most gross things ever, BTW, is if one of the bags pops on a big dust collector like that...I'm really hoping I can send the output to an exterior dumpster when I move to a new shop both to save the shoveling and remove the risk of the Great Halifax Dustsplosion II

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Well Heath my friend I think that I have two things going for me. First all of my tools are set-up with adapters that fit the Festool nice and snug and I do what it takes to collect the dust at the source of making the dust.

Second since the Festool is HEPA rated what goes in stays in and it is not a strainer like my last Shop-Vac was. With my last two vacs a very fine coating of dust got all over the place but with the Festool I have even posted an experiment, that I can't find right now, where I placed black paper on my benches and then used the thickness sander and no dust was found in the shop afterwards.

Also note that my thickness sander is a 10-20 and not a big machine and I use it properly never taking more than .005 - .007 off at once.

So admittedly my needs are light duty and this small system is not for everyone depending on how one works, how big your machines are, what your cleaning regime is, etc.

But it works for me and I have no intention of getting anything bigger as a result. It's also quieter than the Shop-vacs that I have used and that doesn't hurt either. And lastly when not being used as a dust collector it's a first class vac with lots of attachments including being able to hook directly to my Festool ROS - again collecting dust at the source.