Replies

1. 
   PlaneWood | Sep 20, 2002 06:42pm | #1

   Bob -

   I got one of those clear plexiglass lathe dust hoods at WoodWorkers Supply.  I have it on a wood base that can be moved.  When cutting a knob, I position it right at the piece with the deflector between the piece and myself.  I took off the deflector that came with it and got a piece of clear plexiglass from Home Depot.  I cut it to be wider and bigger and use aluminum tape as the hinge.  With my 1200 cfm DC, most shavings are grabbed.  All dust is grabbed.  I rarely cut anything more than 3" long.  See my home page to get an idea what I do.  I am allergic to rosewood, so I strongly desire to have the DC get the stuff instead of me!

   PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy
   PlaneWood

1. 
   forestgirl | Sep 21, 2002 07:05am | #3

   Mike, how are ya?  I saw your reference to being allergic to Rosewood and wanted to invite you to a thread on Woodnet, to lend some common sense on the allergy issue.  Here's the link (if you have time and inclination):

   http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubb/Forum8/HTML/005661.html

   Have a good weekend!

   PS:  Sorry guys, meant to send this via email.  Time to go to sleep.

   forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl   ;-)

   Edited 9/21/2002 12:06:49 AM ET by forest_girl

2. 
   DennisS | Sep 21, 2002 06:54am | #2

   Hi Bob -

   My "dust collection" system is about as primitive as my turning technique at this point. It consists of a surplus furnace blower sitting in the shop window with a 10" spiral bound flexible duct attached to one side and strung over the ceiling hung from wires, whatever so I can position it over or around the lathe as need be. This has little effect, as you might well surmise, on heavier material such as heavy shavings. When roughing out large green wood bowl blanks, the shaving travels over my shoulder in what seems like one continuous string. Like unrwapping the piece. About the only time "dust" collection works with this setup is in sanding and finishing. I'm not sure I'd want to try to pipe all the waste from a days turning through a ducted system. That's a lot of stuff. Getting the small stuff would be nice, though.

   I have a plan in mind to re-model my make-shift system, though. I think adding one of those sheet metal floor vents, the kind used for forced air heating, to provide a kind of trough that I could move around to the most appropriate position might help. But I'll have to upgrade my air movement machinery to drag all that waste through such a big tube.

   I'll watch this thread for suggestions. I share your frustration for dealing with the waste generated in turning.

   Dennis in Bellevue WA

   [email protected]

3. 
   bobpowers | Sep 22, 2002 05:54pm | #4

   Thanks for the information.  Judging from the comments, it sounds to me like I should let my dust collector take care of dust and wade around in the chips as I have done in the past.  But there must be a better way............

1. 
   jeffn7 | Sep 24, 2002 04:38am | #5

   penn state has a plexi shield/collector for lathes, I don't know how well it works but it looks interesting.

   http://www.pennstateind.com

4. 
   Davo304 | Sep 25, 2002 09:16am | #6

   Bob, this probably won't help you but, in our shop our lathe was mounted onto a regular stand. underneath this stand was a trough made from sheet metal. This trough extended nearly the full length of the lathe bed, and was wide enough so to capture 90% of all the shavings falling from the workpiece. The trough had all 4 of it's sides tapered so to form a funnel near the bottom where a round metal pipe was fabricated to it and a regular vacume hose could then be attached.

   Our vacume pipe was located just to the rear of the back corner of the headstock and ran vertically down to ground level where 2 legs branched off...the one leg was hooked to the trough, and the other (bottom-most leg) had a heat vent attachment that resembled the shape of a dust pan.  Any shavings that did not fall into the trough were swept into the dust pan shute.

   AS for fine dust, we had an air hose with a regular ball valve shut-off, that we opened slightly to blow the small stuff off our work piece when running. The hose was clamped to our lathe for hands off operation while we were turning blanks. We also had a plexi shield in place to shield us from the dust and shavings.

   Davo

1. 
   bobpowers | Sep 25, 2002 05:28pm | #7

   Thanks for the info.  Strangely enough, just yesterday I did some rough turning with the dust collector turned off, just to see where chips were falling.  Most were in a pile in the floor under the tool rest.  A system such as you describe would pick up about 90% of the chips.  Of course, the dust is another thing, but I find that easier to deal with.

   As somebody on the forum said about a table saw, I don't like the thought of slipping on sawdust or chips, and like to keep the floor as clear as possible.  I will see if I can fabricate a collector such as you describe.

   Thanks very much.

   Bob