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Hi Folks,

Last year, for my birthday, I gave myself a router for a present. It's an astonishingly quiet Hitachi, and one of my favorite tools. But I have a problem with wood dust. On whiff and I am coughing for a week. The problem with the hitachi, is that there is nothing I can mount a shopvac hose to, and I lack the required third hand to use the router and hold the vacuum hose at the same time...

I did a quick search on Hitachi router base attachments, but came up dry. Does anyone know where I can get a base with a dust attachment, or a sub-base that I can modify for the router?

Thanks!

--Paul

Sounds like a respirator would be a good idea too, bro.

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sweat the small stuff.

Just one wood or all woods................???
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

+1 on the respirator. And do it outside if possible. I have developed bad wood allergies from wood milling without a respirator or any dust control. Don't go there.

You might consider mounting you router in a table. It is much easier to rig up dust control for table mounted routers. Not all routing operations can be done with it table mounted, and when that is the case, routing outdoors (as Gil mentioned) with a fan blowing the chips away from you, and at least a dust mask, might make things bearable.
If you are doing this stuff as a hobby then you might consider alternative methods that produce less dust.

Thanks folks. The router table is a good idea -- but space is a problem. My shop is a 4x10 room in the basement, which used to be a pantry. It's ventilated if I open the door (easier in the summer) and turn on a fan. Maybe I can build a router table thing under the bench itself. That might work, and it would be really cool as well.

So, I wear a respirator when I'm making dust, but the filters don't seem to catch the really small stuff. And of course the dust stays in the air a lot longer than I thought it would. Probably should have researched that a bit earlier.

So I bought a festool vacuum, with a 1 micron filter. The thing cost me the whole year's tool budget, but if it pulls the dust out of the air before it gets to my lungs, it's worth it. With a bit of messing about I have got it attached to the belt sander and ROS -- the two major producers of dust in the shop -- and I tape the hose down by anything I am hand sanding. But the router moves .

And yah, it seems to be all woods. But for me, rosewood is the worst. I may have to start using Walnut or something on the back and sides...

--Paul

i have a hitachi router. although very powerful and super quite, accessories and attachments are hard to find and cheaply made and flimsy. diy is your best bet imo. for dust management i'll clamp down a vacuum cleaner snout close to the work area and wear a mask. about the mask/respirator, get a good one -spend the money.

I'd cobble something up, screw a vacuum hose to a polycarbonate or acrylic base. I live near a TAP Plastics store, raid the scrapbin weekly.

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https://soundcloud.com/jeffreylsuits/he ... -runnin-13

Looks like you have a good start on dust collection. I recommend getting a box fan and tape a 20"x20" furnace filter (i like the Filtrete 1900) on the back of the fan. Put it as close as possible to the dust source and crank the fan up as high as it will go and leave it on all the time you are making dust. Cheap and very effective small dust particle collection. It will work well in your small shop. Wipe down your shop often and clean up soon after dust making events..this will keep down the dust particles floating in your shop. Just walking around your shop will work up a whirlwind of fine dust particles.

For me, walnut is worse than all rosewoods, except cocobolo which gives me a rash just looking at it.

"dust making events" Ha! i like that one. seems like my whole work space is a dust making event.

cedro -makes me sneeze sometimes and can taste bitter,
mahogany -has a bitter taste as well and seems to numb my mouth a bit and makes me kinda sleepy
rosewood -i just hate this stuff. smells like a hospital and gas station bathroom all in one.
primavera -is not so bad actually, just "dusty"
walnut -no real trouble here
oak -i hate this wood more then rosewood. i will absolutely not work with this stuff ever again. very allergic to it. in fact, my first electric guitar that i made when i was 15 still gives me nightmares. i was sick for like 6 months. never again.
maple -no trouble here, just dusty
zebrawood -no issues as well

i really do use masks and vacuums but they aren't totally perfect. my wife is super sensitive to most anything so i really have to be careful cleaning up.

Gotta agree with you there: Dust making events are any event that starts with opening the shop door. .

I like the box fan and filter suggestion a lot -- I'm going to do that tomorrow.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

--Paul