Hi all,

I am a beginner woodworker. I have a basement where some tools are starting to gather. In the next year as I finish the basement I will build a 10 x 15 dedicated small workshop. Woodworking is a hobby for me that consumes about 10 hours a week.

I have started to do some research into dust management solutions. I’ve been following discussions online and I am reading Sandor Nagyszalanczy’s book.

I’ve been trying to get it straight in my head what rating for filters (in the form of filters for air cleaners or bags for dust collectors) really mean. Some DCs are sold with 30 micron bags. It seems obvious that a 30 micron bag is completely unacceptable. My assumption is the reason that these bags are even sold with DCs is (1) to reduce the price, and (2) the performance metrics in terms of CFMs and static pressure must be influenced by how restrictive the bag is.

I’ve seen discussions where people who have purchased DCs with 5 micron bags will upgrade them to 1 micron bags immediately. I also see that many people are very happy with the new Jet 2 micron cartridge filter that go onto the top of a single stage DC.

My intention is to purchase a single stage DC (single stage due to my space restrictions) and an air cleaner.

My question is: What is ‘good enough’ in terms of how fine of a particle a dust collector should filter out?

When I try to define ‘good enough’ to myself I come up with:

o When I am cutting/milling I want the DC to deal with most of the big stuff and for the air cleaner to catch up on the fine stuff in short order.

o When I am using a random orbital sander a foot or two in front of my face I expect to still need a quality dust mask.

o When I am spending the large majority of my time not cutting but thinking-three, measuring-twice, and figuring out why the heck my joint doesn’t fit tightly — I want the air to be nearly as clean or cleaner than the rest of the house.

That is ‘good enough’ for me. So I guess my question is how do I figure out whether 5, 2 or 1 micron bags will be good enough for me? The investment in quality dust management is easy for my to justify. I just want to do it once.

Thank you very much for any input. BTW, I greatly enjoy the information and discussion shared here.

Paul

p.s. I haven’t ruled out cyclones before anyone brings it up — I just earlier in the research cycle of finding one (or a design) that will fit into the space and budget I have. I think my question of judging how a filter performs still holds if I replace the DC with a cyclone in my discussion above.