Thread: table saw design

It's certainly better than nothing. What would be better still, although trickier to do, would be to try to build an enclosure that fits around the bottom of the blade (like you see on panel saws) so you're moving your extraction point as close as possible to where the dust is being made.

I added under saw dust collection to my contractor saw, similar to the picture, and tried to make an adjustable fill in panel around the motor mount. In the end I removed the panels around the motor. There's not a lot of mess sprayed out the back of the cabinet and I think the main airflow is mainly pulled in from there anyway. It doesn't seem to have reduced the amount of dust coming off the blade above the table.

Originally Posted by Tonto

little bit of scratching around and this popped up, whats your thoughts please.

TABLE SAW DUST ENCLOUSURE
My contractor-style tablesaw spewed sawdust everywhere until I enclosed the base by covering all the openings with 1/4-in. MDF panels. First, I added two aluminum angle rails so the collection box slopes toward the dust port in the back panel. Then I screwed on the MDF panels.
I made two custom-fit panels to cover the open back, one for 45-degree cuts and another for 90-degrees cuts, because those are the most common blade positions I use. These panels rest on the lip at the back of the opening and simply slide in and out of place. I marked them for cutting by measuring around the motor mount and belt guardtablesaw .

That's basically what I did, except mine uses an inverted pyramid shaped hopper made from 1mm thick Al that extracts direct from underneath. The hopper is made so it sandwiches between the base and legs. The hole in the middle was cut just wide enough so a threaded PVC ducting coupler could be threaded through the hole.

IMG_4608w.jpg IMG_4611w.jpg
The photos show the installation using 4" ducting in 2006.
In 2011 I upgraded to 6" ducting and this made a big difference to fine dust escaping from the cabinet.


Just addressing dust collection from the cabinet is only the start as far as fine dust is concerned as the overhead dust guard leaks a lot of dust. I experimented with many different overhead guard before settling on one that uses a 4" connection.

TSguard1.jpg

There are two pressure switches, one on the guard ducting and one on the cabinet to sense if the DC is on and blast gates are open. If these conditions are not met the TS will not start.

I also have a router table connected to the RHS of the TS.
To cope with the dust coming from both sources a short Y junction and two blast gates are located under the cabinet because the other arm of the Y goes to the under table router collection box.

Tests with a particle/dust monitor show no increase in fine dust levels in the shed during and after prolonged use of the TS.