I have a 17″ band saw that needs dust collection. I was thinking of a small unit, either one using a plastic bucket, cyclone and shop vac, or one such as the small 1HP unit from Harbor Freight. I also have a blower unit from a bouncy castle (castle is long gone) that I could use to provide suction. I want to keep this simple.
I need some advice on which way would be preferable. Are either of these a good way to go, or is there a 3rd option I’m not considering? Are there any issues I need to consider?
Thanks for all your help.
John
Replies
I think it'll depend more on the connections on the bandsaw. Unless it's pretty new and has good ports on it - in the right places - the effectiveness of the collection will depend more on your ability to grab the dust right under the table and at the lower wheel. My Grizzly doesn't have good ports on it and it's been a continual process to try and add good DC to it - I've tried both my shopvac and harbor freight collector, still not happy with it.
Rob Cosman recently posted his solution to this very problem on YouTube. In this video he shows how he made an adapter that allows a shop vac hose to attach underneath the table and surround the blade.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut_tqnqrRww
I have the Grizzly 513 Anniversary model. It has two 4" ports, one underneath the table and one at the bottom. I watched the Cosman vid and, due to his comments on velocity, believe that the bouncy castle blower will provide much better air flow. I also need to look underneath the table to see if doing some sort of similar adapter is feasible. Thanks.
A shop vac won't get it done on a saw that big.
I'd go with a small wall mount 1HP unit. Most will be in the 4-600CFM range which is ideal for your bandsaw.
I have recently redone my miter saw station w/ new saw. Rather than hook to my system, I'm going with a 1HP ShopFox dedicated unit.
Whatever suction option you use I'd get a dust deputy or similar to place before your collector. It is amazing how much dust they stop. Mine is on a used 55 gallon drum, it is far easier to deal with than the bags on the cheep shopfox 1hp unit I have. 6 drum fulls and I've got 3 inches of dust in the bag.
If you use the bouncy castle blower think about where the dust will go, outside for sure but will it blow all over the house? Neighbor's house? How big of a mess will it be.
I know right now you are just talking about a band saw but if you are anything like me you will like having it enough that you will try to hook up every tool you can, it make work so much easier.
The bouncy blower's designer had no vision of large amounts of fine dust being fed through it. I think you're setting yourself up for a fire.
I'm not keen on the castle blower idea. It should work in theory, but you'd have to put it AFTER a cyclone. You also need to size the cyclone correctly for the blower output, which is hard if you don't know it. I don't think it would catch fire, but the blades will certainly not be designed to take impacts which are a regular occurrence in woodshop extractors.
If budget allows, you could consider a larger sucker - I have a cheap 2HP unit which is ample for my needs. I can run my bandsaw and tablesaw with 2 users at the same time and it copes fine. I have run 4 inch sewer pipe to duct the dust from collection point to the sucker.
I would love a cyclone but building one is on the 'to do' list....
This forum post is now archived. Commenting has been disabled