Dust Collection on TS Questions

Interesting video

Hi Barry

Take a look at this video ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Dust Collection on TS Questions

"Neither saw has over the blade guard/pickup."

There's the main cause of dust spewing from the top of the blade and into your face. Effecting a significant improvement is surely as simple as replacing the blade guard? Is there a reason why you prefer to run your machine without the guard in place? Slainte.

Re: Interesting video

I have watched a number of his videos, many of them on China tools. I wonder about the table insert.  I noticed the sawdust coming off the blade yesterday when we were ripping  some 3/4" plywood.  So that would have covered his holes and slots.  I will look at the saw cabinet and see if there are enough air inlets.  I looked yesterday and it appears the pickup is a sort of three sided chute wrapped around the front of the blade. On my version I made a box that enclosed the blade all the way around.  I am reluctant to fiddle with the inside of the saw for fear it would interfere with the SawStop function.  I only gave it a glance but I was impressed with how little sawdust was inside the cabinet.  I will look again.

Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

Well, let me think out loud...I don't have one because I never have.  AS far as I can recall, I have never used a TS with an over the blade pickup.  High school shop class...nope.  Any shop I was ever in...nope.  The saw mentioned above I bought fifty years ago...nope.  I bought the Sawstop PCS at a freight auction and did not get one with it.  So what I am saying is it never occurred to me I should have one.  

Another problem is I have a tiny shop with about ten major tools and if I get one more thing I will just have to stand in the door and admire my good fortune but there will be no room for me or to work.  Yesterday my son and I ripped three sheets of plywood (4' x 8' or 1220 x 2440 mm for the rest of the world).  It was like trying to maneuver an aircraft carrier in a bathtub.  An over the blade guard would have had to be removed just to get the plywood into the shop. The garage door rolls up and back over the saw, the plywood slides in, I crawl under it to raise the blade and turn on the saw and DC and the cut is made.  Don't even get me started on the measuring and calculations that go into setting the fence and accounting for the offcut.

I will give some thought to this.  The door rolling up and over the top means I can't drop the pickup hose down from the ceiling.  Any boom arm would be in the way. Hmm.  Might just be easier to clean up after.

Re: Interesting video

Barry, I do not have personal experience of a tablesaw set up without a dust guard. My own tablesaw is a Hammer K3 slider, and it is used with the dust guard ... always! 

At present the dust guard is not connected to a dust collector (it usually is), but what I have noticed is that that there is minimal dust on the table top after sawing. This was not the case a month ago, but since then I cleaned the Super Dust Deputy that connects to the Dust Collector. Frankly, I am a little amazed with the improvement to the dust collection - all coming from inside the saw. There is something to be said for an enclosed blade and a stronger air flow.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Re: Interesting video

I was taken aback by the amount of dust doming off the top of the blade. OTOH I don't often break down full sheets and this saw is fairly new to me, only been using it a few months.  I am speculating that I have not made many if any similar cuts.  I have certainly made a few long rips in boards.  This time the dust was worse than I remember and I am wondering if I had ignored it or if it were not so bad on short rips and cross cuts.  I am guessing that I had the blade raised a little higher than normal trying to take that variable out of ripping full sheets.  I think I will experiment with raising the blade so just the carbide is above the work and then try it with the bottom of the gullet at the top of the work.

Now I understand why dust accumulates on the cabinet just below the arc cutout for the blade high adjustment handle.  That is about a two inch wide opening in the shape of a smile.  Air flows intro the cabinet and airborne dust drops out on the rolled edge of the cabinet.   There are also openings between the top and the cabinet.  For there to be air exiting the cabinet there must be air entering.  Gosouta = Gosinta  I worked hard to seal up my contractor saw but this one looks pretty good.

I considered putting either a suction port or an air pressure nozzle perpendicular to the blade to blow the dust out of the gullets before they reached the top of the table at the back but never did it.  Sort of a mad scientist idea.

While I like my Sawstop I am a little envious of your Hammer.

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

"Well, let me think out loud...I don't have one because I never have."

That, plus the rest of your response is so typically American, ha, ha. Blade guards, or crown guards as we know them over here never (or should never) in a professional workshop leave their position attached to the riving knife, or their mounting on an arm that positions the crown guard over the blade. There really are no bench or table saw operations that require removal of the riving knife and crown guard. There's a saying that goes: if you need to remove the guard(s) to undertake an operation you're using the wrong tool. You need to find the right tool to do the job that doesn't require removal of guards.

I've never really understood why Americans prefer to get rid of such a simple and useful safety device, usually along with the riving knife at the same time, but maybe it comes down to some sort of stubbornness in refusing to see the utility and added safety such devices built-in by the manufacturer provide. Slainte.

Agree!

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

I was looking at a YouTube video today, which involved a tour of a school workshop. The workshop has 4 SawStop tablesaws. And the guards are not used!  What philosophy is being taught?

9 minutes in ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Why

"American" saws [Rockwell, Delta, Jet, Powermatic] have never used riving knives, instead using "splitters" for that function.  The problem is that the splitter blade does not move in unison with the blade.  Thus when not make through cuts the this have to be removed.  The issue is exacerbated when the over-blade guard is incorporated with the splitter assembly.  The SawStop was the 1st domestic machine to incorporate the true riving knife.  Other manufacturers (US/Taiwan/China) have declined to modify their castings to allow for a retracting riving knife. 

The Unisaws used an "easily" removed splitter (which I have on my JET), but I still have to pull it for dado cuts.  I do, however, use an over-arm guard/ dust hood that stays in place.

Re: Why

Mark, what you described illustrates to me what seems to be a pretty standard American approach to using a table saw. All the talk of 'needing' to remove splitters/riving knives and the crown/blade guards 'getting in the way', the permanently set long rip fence, dado and moulding heads, and so on is alien to us users on the eastern side of the pond. We don't think like that at all because all that removing stuff just isn't required.

I do though think it's interesting that at those rare times I'm pointed to a YouTube video (I don't look for such videos myself) illustrating table saw accidents ranging from things like severed fingers to kickback incidents, and how, retrospectively the accident/injury could have been mitigated, the presenter is almost always someone living and/or working in North America. There's probably a message in that. Slainte.

The Message

the "western" power tool companies have ignored for decades.

who is this Western Power you speak of?

Re: who is this Western Power you speak of?

JET/Powermatic/Delta etc etc etc etm

The Saw Stop inventor offered them his system.  They turned him down so he went ahead did it himself.  If I were 10 years younger I'd have traded in my cabinet saw for a Saw Stop.

Re: who is this Western Power you speak of?

I understand. I am 73 and I have been considering building a new shop.  Can't bring myself to do it. 

I wanted a Sawstop and couldn't bring myself to buy one retail but got one for less than half price at  a freight auction.  Took a bit of fiddling and few replacement parts for stuff that got pilfered from the package on the way.  One thing I am impressed with is Sawstop sold me the parts for very reasonable costs.  Ordered a few generic screws and bolts that I could have bought locally and they were cheaper from Sawstop than Home Depot.  I suspected they would be "offended" by the fact I got it at an auction, but they were not and were very helpful.  I like the saw a lot and in spite of the fact it had a rough ride after leaving the factory it was easy to assemble and tune up.  Not sure, but I think I just discovered I should have gotten and over the blade guard but the one that might have come with it would not have included a dust collection port.  The version with the port is $159 but the contraption to connect it brings it to over $500.  Not sure collecting the dust off the top of the blade is worth it. (Some of the reviews reported it did not work well.)

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

I have never used one, but I own one.  It was made by Excaliber, The company famous for it's fret saws, and a wonderful fence.  Not sure if they exist at this point.  But it attached to the side table and a beam came over the top of the saw, which was a tube sized for a 4" hose.  Raised and lowered over the blade.  SImilar things can be shop built with a square wood tube bolted to the ceiling, and a destaco clamp to allow raising and lowering.  From the ceiling is great because there is no beam to get in the way.

I don't do production so I always roll my saw outside, and I don't care about dust collections.  I just didn't have room for the full saw set up, so I got rid of it.

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

I have a good blade guard on my Inca and I will occasionally use it, but as with SawStop, I don't see how I would every cut my hand (stay tuned).  I have a few rules of things I don't do.  Around the time I took up making guitars, I doubled down on saving my fingers.  I just no longer do anything that requires me to run hands near the blade.  It reduces the utility of the saw slightly.  But there is always another way.  I probably do break the rule occasionally.  But it is like 99% observed, so as I say, stay tuned, it could still gore myself.  I certainly doubt it.

Here is a pic of the kind of guard I would make, if I went back to a large saw, and didn't want to use the Excaliber for some reason.  However, the first one I ever saw, just had a plate of lexan over the blade, you can't get you fingers in there, and it still got most of the dust.  That enclosure is so large, I might as well just not put my fingers near the blade.for the loss of functionality.

Of course with employees you need every feature you can get.  The definition of employees is generally that they start with no idea of the job. And one has to provide a safe environment.

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

"...her is a pic of the guard I would make..." No pic.Would like to see it.

PIC

I've had an Excaliber on my saw for 15 years.  Connection to the cyclone by way of 6" ducting split to a 4" into the cabinet and 3" to the overarm.  Get very little remains on the saw's top so long as the hood's down.

Re: Why don't I have a over the blade Pickup?

Whoops.

Actually, looked at more carefully, I would not build that one.  The one I saw was just two square wooden tubes one sliding inside the other.  Terminating in a square piece of lexan over the blade.  The unit could be raised or lowered and a distaco clamp was used to stop the tube at whatever height was required.  Air was channeled up the wooden tube to the dust system.  It is easier to install such a device with an open ceiling.  An enclosed design would certainly catch more dust, but that one looks pretty like it would impede the uses for the saw.  Nice for plywood cabinet cuts, but not so great for solid wood work.

This picture is from an article in Canadian woodworking, but it wouldn't open for me. He said he made it for 15$ from what I could see.

Google "ceiling mounted blade guard" in picture mode and you will see lots of examples.

Re: More DIY guard pics

This parallelogram example seem common.  A great detail on that one is the forward nose that would trap saw dust an maybe allow that small vac to extract more efficiently.  It would depend on the details as it could just fill up.:

Shopnotes has a plan, page 36 here, a side mount design:

https://ia801302.us.archive.org/16/items/ShopNotesMag/Shopnotes%20%2392%20%28Vol%2016%29%20-%20Before%20%26%20After%20Shop%20Makeover.pdf

That is off Archive.org, which is well curated for piracy.

Re: More DIY guard pics, got the Canadian Woodworking link to work...

https://canadianwoodworking.com/project/ceiling-mounted-adjustable-table-saw-guard/

Re: Boating downstream of the waterfall.

This article shows how one person mounted to the ceiling without exposed beams:

https://www.wwgoa.com/article/table-saw-safety-guards-splitters/

Anyone who makes their own guard is assuming the risk for themselves, and as the saying goes; "may have a fool for a client".  But commercial guards will rarely match the home shop expert use case as it is very unlikely that a commercial guard will work for all the jobs a home shop takes on, which are highly diverse.  Part of the reason I don't depend on them, and my approach is to boat downstream of the waterfall.

Re: Interesting video

Very interesting video, which for the most part makes a  lot of sense. But I can't seem to figure out why it matters whether or not the holes in the insert are on the left side or the right side of the blade.What difference does that make?