Thread: DUST EXTRACTION on a DRILL PRESS – 99.7% success

I’ve been fooling around with this idea for a while now, and on the weekend I got serious about it. We all know that apart from the obvious reasons, dust & swarf on a drill press is a PITA for cleaning out and lining up the next hole. You can’t see the mark and/or swarf prevents the job from lining up correctly. Blowing it out is rarely a good option, and only creates other dust problems somewhere else.

I have an advantage in having a timber Drill Deck, fence and clamps system (Spotted Gum) that I can easily work to suit my needs.

On Sunday I happened to have the Repetition Hole fence in, and it has a steel rod that runs the length of it (that’s a WIP and will get a report in due course – can’t say too much). I looked at the roll of Gaff tape, and looked at the diminishing stack of REMs and “AHA!”. Taped the magnets onto the Vac hose about 3 inches down from the business end, and it worked like a bloody charm! Really easy and quick to adjust or move away.

Today, however, it occurred to me that this was only useful for holes being drilled about 30mm or less from the fence . This does cover most of my holz bohrung activities, but not all. An hour and a half of pondering later, I put this clamping system together (scavenged parts from other defunct clamps). Only one piece had to be made and that was the vac tube holder. This required a 32mm Forstner, and of course, I DIDN’T BLOODY ORDER ONE DID I? Fourteen other Forstners, and nothing between 30 & 35mm! That will explain the rather rough hole that I had to let out with a crappy Brazilian rasp (didn’t have a Liogier half round yet either did I?). Glued the S/S rod into the vac holder, roughed it up so that the Spotted Gum clamp at the back will grab it enough. Tightening the top wing nut on the right side of the fence secures the fence to the deck and also tightens the pivot angle, swing and length of the vac clamp.

It will now go wherever it is supposed to. It is a little slower to adjust, but them’s the breaks. I have some other ideas to pursue, using part of a benchtop connector incorporated into the job clamp (not shown in this series), but this works quite well for the moment. My aim is to eliminate as much clutter as possible from around the drill bit, so If I can combine the Vac Clamp and the Job Clamp together then that will be terrific.

So, how well did it work? It was bloody sensational! I was able to securely position the end of the Vac tube 1mm from the drill bit shaft, and it performed better than Paris Bloody Hilton (I’m referring to her nose)! I weighed and measured the job before and after drilling, and by weight, it took out 99.7% of the swarf. The scales that I used to measure the unsucked powder swarf are accurate to 0.05 of a gram, and there was no registration when I measured the dust. I measured a larger quantity of the same swarf, and was able to calculate that what was left was 0. 3% of what was taken out. That means 99.7% removal of dust that would have gone onto the job and deck etc.

I have not tried this particular set up with a larger Forstner bit yet, but I’m expecting (from other trials) that it will not be as good because the swarf gets thrown up further away from the vac tube on the downwind side. Early trials with another set up indicate that in this case the best position for the nozzle is at the front (another WIP).

Pic 1 shows the set up before drilling. The little bit of blue rubber that you can see between the job and the front fence stops the job from sliding and moving upwards (it's very difficult to shift it). This is also visible in pic 4.

Pic 2 shows the remaining swarf after drilling ten holes 8mm x 25mm (with a very well used Colt 8mm that is still sharp).

Pic 3 shows the swarf delivered by drilling ONE hole. Without extraction, there would have been ten times this amount to be dealt with, so clearly a much faster drilling process, and well worth the fairly quick set up time.

Pic 4 shows the remaining dust that was tapped out the holes (all ten). This is prolly about 1%, but just gets tapped out into a bin. There’s rarely any with shallower holes.

Pic 5 shows detail of the clamping set up into the fence.

Specs & Tools used:
Bit: 8mm Colt FCE 5* (there's another kind?)

Drill speed: 3050 rpm
Vac: 1997 model Volta 1000w which has seen more carpets than Paris Hilton
Timber: Pinus hideous
Drilling: 10x 8mmx25mm holes
Weight of timber before drilling: 140 grams
Weight of timber after drilling: 133.5 grams
Weight of holes (?): 6.5 grams
Weight of remaining swarf: 0.02 grams
Swarf as & of holes weight: 0.31%
Swarf removal: 99.7% (6.48 grams)