End Grain: Dust Collection for Beginners Part 1
I think one of the most important things any new woodworking can invest in is a good dust collection system. Personally I don't even have my whole system set up yet but I've been looking into this for quite a while now and I even read a book about it (strange, right?) Here's what I have to say.
In this first part of my series of dust collection basics I'll be talking about the layout of your shop. Let's get started.
The first step in creating your own dust collection system is to survey your shop to look for answers to how much tubing you will need, how many transition pieces and other things like where you will put blast gates and where to put a floor sweep.
A few things you'll need to know:
Tubing- can be a rigid or flexible hose that the dust will travel through, many systems use both
T's- a T shaped transition piece, not ideal because of the drastic change in direction but needs to be used at times
Y's- a less drastic and preferable means of transition piece. The 30 or 45 degree split makes the dust's travel path easier than the 90 degree turn that happens with a T
Blast Gate- a "shut off valve" that lets you open and close different branches of your system to increase suction to individual parts or machines
Cyclone- a separate section of the system kept close to the dust collector that lets bigger pieces fall into it to keep them away from the impeller of the dust collector
Floor Sweep- a section that lets you sweep thing from the floor right into the system
Dust Collector- the main part of any system, can be as small as a shop vac or as big as you want
After you look at the space you have and decide that you're ready for a dust collection system, it's time to get started. A few tips for getting started:
-using a Y instead of a T whenever possible is preferable because there will be less loss of suction with the less drastic change in direction
-having a cyclone is invaluable because it essentially eliminates the chances of nails or other large objects making their way into your dust collector
-I personally think a floor sweep is one of the coolest parts of this system which will help save lots of time so think about working on of those in
-a floor sweep should be kept close to the dust collector but still further away than the cyclone so that everything will go through that cyclone
That's it for this week, thanks for looking! This is just a basic overview of what a dust colection system can be so come back over the next couple weeks as I go into more detail about what you can make. For more information I highly recommend this book, Dust Collection Basics, for any more questions you have until I'm back. Thanks!
