Charlie Lenz
John I agree with you on the principal of the usual Bandsaw dust shroud being pretty open. I think that if a person can reduce some of that opening that it would probably help. My rule of thumb generally on dust collection weather it be a vac or dust collector is that the port size should dictate the size of the opening in the machine for fresh air, with a dust collector depending on the rated CFM you might be able to get away with a larger opening, atleast thats what I have noticed with the dust collection that I designed for my contractor's table saw. As far as a Separator being good for a sander, Separators generally were designed to grab the heavier stuff, such as chips and shaveings. I've noticed when useing a Delta 50-760, 1 & 1/2hp dust collector that I added an onboard Separator too with the Thien baffle installed with my Delta Contractor's table saw that the 1 micron filter does cake up some. I think that with an ordinary Separator without the Thien baffle that it would cake up more. The theory the way I understand it is that the baffle is to eliminate some of the turbulance under the baffle so what has settled in the container doesn't get stirred up and sucked into the bag. I haven't tried the Separotor on a sander yet, but I can tell you that the Separator on the DC works VERY well with the chip produceing machines such as the table saw and thickness planer that I have tried it with. The dust will fill right up to the bottom of the baffle before it needs to be emptied. It amazed me the first time that I tried it on a project that was large enough to fill it up, surface planeing six 6 ft long 2" X 10"s down to 1 & 1/4" thick.