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LeeWay Workshop |
November 21, 2008 |
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Dust collection photo's and info
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There are many different ways to accomplish the dust collection hose or pipe hook ups and supports. They can vary from the very minimal to the elaborate. Everyone's dust collector units and needs are different. The Shark's collect pretty well from just a simple shop vac connection. Almost anything else you do in the way of an upgrade will likely improve the collection properties in kind.
Comments from Bill Pentz
Lee shared with me early on when he started making the Shark Guard dust collectors. I said this product looked like a great idea because there were no small shop woodworker saw over blade guard hoods that I really liked. All either worked poorly for dust collection and or had safety issues. A saw guard must do the following things:
1. A good blade guard hood needs to provide a reasonable measure of safety. This means it both helps us keep away from our blades, protects us from kickback and is made of something strong enough that if things go flying we are going to get some reasonable protection. Lee makes his Shark Guards from some of the toughest plastic known which is also used in safety glasses, bulletproof windows, etc. He also offers his Shark Guards with a good splitter and anti-kickback pawls to minimize kickback.
2. A good blade guard hood also in my opinion needs to let us see what we are doing. Strangely, some guards are smoky or solid steel like the one that came with my European saw that soon got tossed because taking it on and off to ensure my cuts were aligned correctly was too much trouble. The Shark Guard provides excellent visibility and its design minimizes a buildup of static adhered dust so we don’t have to do a lot of cleaning.
3. A guard hood also must provide good chip collection meaning collect the same sawdust and chips that we would otherwise sweep up with a broom. It is real simple. Our saw blade tips launch dust at over 100 miles an hour and even a powerful cyclone like my design only moves air at about 60 miles an hour. Unless a blade guard blocks that fast moving airflow off the tip of our blades, we lose and are going to have sawdust and chips all over. One of my good friends bought one of the nicest and most expensive over arm guards for his saw. It had an open front on its clear blade guard so spews sawdust and chips all over the front of his saw and area around the front of his saw. The Shark Guard addresses this problem well.
4. For those who want good fine dust collection, a good blade guard hood must also be able to move enough air. If our tools are made from the ground up to totally trap all the sawdust and chips we make then a good shop vacuum will provide excellent dust collection. Because most of us use tools not built from the ground up for good fine dust collection we need to instead block the fast moving streams with good hoods and move enough air to surround the working areas of our tools with air moving fast enough to overcome normal room air currents and pull in the fine dust. Although many vendors would like us to believe this is all brand new and about as complicated as rocket science, the reality is we have decades of air engineering experience that show just what we need in terms of our blade guard hoods and airflow. Lee has made the guard to do a good job controlling the fine dust and with his 4” port enables it to move the airflow above the saw blade that the air engineers say we need to get good enough fine dust collection ample to meet the various air quality standards.
So the bottom line is I not only recommend Lee’s Leeway Shark Guards, I personally use one.
Bill Pentz
If you would like to find out much more about anything dust collection related, visit Bill's site here.
Here is a link to Clearvue Cyclone's.
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A standard Shop Vac hose will fit into the dust port on the Shark Guard. I personally have a simple bungee cord supporting my 2.5" clear flex hose that I purchased from
Rockler.
This hose fits snuggly around the outside of the dust ports on the Shark Guards with no additional fittings on that end. I then feed it into an overhead blast gate that connects to my main line run into my collector barrel of my
shop made monster dust collector.
This line runs to the middle of my shop beneath the floor and this is where I connect the lower port on my tablesaw as well as a few other machines I have in the center of the shop.
It all seems to work very well for me. Nothing really that elaborate. Standard S&D 4" pvc piping and typical cheap plastic blast gates. This is an older phot. Though I have upgraded the hose from the 2 inch in the photo to 2.5 inch, its basically still the same setup. I use a couple of bungee cords to suspend and support this hose over the particular tool that I am using, Be it the Shark, the router fence or my
shop made CNC router.
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Here is Narayan Nayar's setup using a 2.5" flex hose piped to a 6" main for his 8.0 Shark Guard. His hose is left a little long to reach his router table. This is how I do it as well.
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Here is Joe Stern's setup using a shop vac piped for his Shark Guard. Looks to be standard shop vac hose.
Here is a link to the post at
BT3Central
where Joe discussed this setup in a small shop space.
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These next photo's are from Mac. He is also a member at BT3Central. Notice how he simply hangs the hose from a line above.
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These next photo's are from Cody H. He is also a member at BT3Central. Here is a
link to his post
about this setup. His setup is more elaborate with a full blown overarm piping. I think this would work better for him if he had a more substantial dust collector. Its a nice and easy idea.
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This is a Delta 34-444 with a Shark Guard That James S. has hard piped overarm style.
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This is Gugie's Shark Guard setup. He was one of the original owner's of the Shark Guard. He and many other like him helped the Shark Guard evolve into what it is today. Thanks a bunch.
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Here is Lou's setup on his General 350. Quick and easy. He used dowels taped to the hose to stiffen it up. Thanks for the pics, Lou.
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This is
Vinht's site.
He has a very neat setup for dust collection on his Shark Guard.
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I will add more photo's to this page as time permits and when owner's can send me some photo's.
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