Thanks for your responses on sawdust and sinusitis.  I’d love to get citations to some clinical literature discussing this connection, if it exists.

I appreciate the advice.  My dust collectisystem on went in in a hurry eleven years ago made with black ribbed plastic drain pipe and rough wooden blast gates.  We had just moved into “This Old House” on “This Old Place” and I needed the shop right away.

Now, I’ve put up a little gabled shed on the far wall of the garage (shop) and I’m putting the dust collector and the air compressor in it.  Not only do I lose the noise, I also discharge the fine dust that the bags don’t get outside.

I’m going to build a new downdraft table when I’m done with the dust collection and the air.

I’m replumbing the dust collection with 4″ co-extruded drain piping.  It has an inner core of about 1/8th black polyethylene and a skin of about 1/32nd white PVC for gluing.  I like it better than PVC because it is much more forgiving in being a little more flexible and a lot less brittle than PVC or ABS. 

Can anyone give me advice about the spacing of the spiral windings of bare copper grounding wire?  (How far apart should the windings be?)

And, the two-strap dust masks are MUCH MUCH better than the old single strap masks.

I’ll post some pictures of my work when it’s as good as the stuff I see here!