Thread: High Dust extraction efficiency...... a fools erand?

A fool's errand? Absolutely not.

There is a broad spectrum of dust, from chunks to chips to the 'invisible' dust and we are exposed to all of it.

What has been occurring over the last few years is education and discussion about dust, something a lot of woodworkers have been particularly ignorant about. Manufacturers do not want the machines they sell identified for what they really are - chip collectors, and woodworkers assume they are ok because they have a DC in the shed.

At times the discussion on very fine particles is more than I want to read. However, when I was a smoker in the '70s and '80s I thought the same thing about the emerging warnings. There are differences to the dust now as opposed to early years too; cutting raw timber is different to cutting MDF which contains exceptionally fine dust, glues and other stuff we should all be wary of.

The discussions here have challenged a lot of people to think more about their health and the machinery they use. It has also given some quite practical advice, for example, putting your DC outside the shed. There are discussions on airflow and shroud design going on that have caused people to question their setup and, dare I say it, really think about it for the first time.

Truly high efficiency dust extraction may not be practical and achievable (yet), but it will never be achieved if we don't discuss it and try. What we may have seen in a number of workshops already is designs based on a growing knowledge. For manufacturers an increasing awareness and education of their market may mean they begin to introduce features from higher end saws.

We will never get rid of all of it, but every % we do remove we are better off.

Saying this is a "fool's errand" is a slight on the efforts of those doing some good work. We benefit from these discussions and each of us can choose how far we want to go. I for one want to see the discussions continue.

Soundman and Groggy have good points.

Soundman is effectively blaming the design of the machines themselves, which does not really lend itself to efficient dust colection. In saying so he is right. As I posted in a recent thread about my belt and disk sander I was appalled at what the manufacturer put on the machine and called a dust extraction system. Modifications are in progress. So while I agree with Soundman here that the machine design is poor that is no need to have a defeatist attitude and use it as an excuse to not try and collect as much as we can.

Groggy is also right in what he said about there being more awareness of dust issues than there was in the past. Groggy mentions smoking, I think a better example is asbestos. I agree that none of us who are currently working on better collection methods are on a fools errand. The machine designs may not make it easy but if we as a community of amateur woodworkers don't make a start to help ourselves then nobody else will help us either.

We all know that businesses who sell woodworking machines read these forums and others like it. If they see that we, as a group, are shifting our focus to machines with efficient dust collection on our machines instead of just a 4" pipe sticking out the bottom of a bandsaw doing nothing in particular other than sucking air and making noise so it looks good, then they will start manufacturing better machines because that will be a selling point. A bandsaw for example with dust collection like the one Groggy modded and posted on the forum a couple of years ago may become the norm if the manufacturers know that we are interested in that.

It all has to start everywhere, but we need to apply common sense and work with the resources you could reasonably expect to fit in a normal home workshop within the power and budget constraints most of us have.

Doug

The old saying, "watch your pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" comes to mind. If all you aim at is collecting visible dust, chances are that's pretty much all you will get. Aim at collecting as much invisible dust as you can within your budget limitations, you will inevitably collect the large stuff.

I know I am limited in what I can ultimately achieve in terms of total dust capture, largely because of budget. But do I let that stop me from trying? No, I just look for creative solutions. Some tools are inherently difficult to capture from, like my radial arm saw or sliding mitre saws. That makes the efforts of the likes of BobL on these forums to measure and document particle levels so important, because I can then take that info and use it in practical ways without necessarily needing the test gear or interpretive skills myself. The almost total absence of meaningful data provided by vendors of hobbyist equipment has left it to dedicated hobbyists to fill in the gaps. The fact that the people doing the research are hobbyists like ourselves, who also have limitations in budget, space and power to contend with, has lead to some creative solutions that are economical to implement. Without the relevant data, it would be easy to overspend on ineffective solutions.

I don't see the sense in a defeatist attitude, which is what calling it a fool's errand is. In fact, I find the approach from most people on this forum to be overwhelmingly positive in making the best of what you have and can afford. And in the end, the cleaner the workshop environment, the more pleasurable it is to work in there. That's the point of all the info and data being given.

SO..fellas, what persentage efficiency do you think you are achieving with your efforts?

And with the huge volumes of dust that some machines and some operations generate, how much dust does that leave comming out to contaminate the work space?

As for being concerned about "invisable dust" when there is still plenty of visable dust clearly present....the watch you pennies analogy simply is not valid.

If we are not dealing with the visable dust, we have not even begun to deal with the so called invisable dust.

A more accurate analogy is, its pointless wiping your bum when you are standing up to your armpits in $##t.

Remember fellas, I've been on this dust extraction band waggon for well over 10 years now and was using dust extraction long before that.

I have purchsed machines because of their better dust extraction performance, I have modified over a dozen machines to add or improve dust extraction and at one time believed that high levels of dust extraction where practicaly achieveable.
BUT after over a decade of working with dust extracted machines both as a hobby and in a manufactuing context, I have come to the unhappy realisation that anything approacing what can be reasonably called "High dust extraction efficiency' is simply not practicaly achieveable on a reliable basis.

My table saw when running favorable cuts will capture all but a very very small amount of material, but on unfavorable cuts, inspite of adaptions and work arrounds it will spew large quantities of material all over the place.

My sanders I have several and they are almost never operated with out forced dust extaction. Again on favorable work the best will operate very cleanly indeed, but on unfavorable work will still allow significant amoints of material to escape, and some of them ( the belt sander in particular) while significantly improved by forced extraction, there is no way to get a high level of dust capture.

The routers I own 5, vary greatly in what can be achieved.....the best is my snotty old Bosch POF.....the remainder defy all efforts to achieve meaningfull chip collection let alone dust capture for many operations.

So ya think your dust extraction is efficient...show me that it is.

cheers

Originally Posted by soundman

SO..fellas, what persentage efficiency do you think you are achieving with your efforts?

And with the huge volumes of dust that some machines and some operations generate, how much dust does that leave comming out to contaminate the work space?
...
So ya think your dust extraction is efficient...show me that it is.

I am sure that my dust extraction system is NOT efficient. But it does at least get some of the dust. ANd every particle that the dusty breathes in is one that I wont have to breathe in.

The visible dust may make the workshop messy but you aren't breathing it in, so it isn't a health hazard. It can be swept up. (OMG am I turning into BobL? .)

In addition, I have other systems in place to help manage the invisible dust. I have a piece of plywood with two bathroom style exhust fans mounted in it that I place in the open window when I am working. I did the calculations a long time ago but I think from memory that they extract the volume of the air in the shed nearly 8 times an hour. The more that the dust collector gets the less the exhaust fans have to contend with and the faster they drop the particle count to an acceptable level.

Every little bit helps. I do not consider any of my efforts in collecting the dust to be a waste of time. If I am cutting MDF in particular i prefer to take the tablesaw outside of the shed and do it on the concrete driveway so that the dust can blow away in the breeze.

As Soundman says " its pointless wiping your bum when you are standing up to your armpits in $##t."Yes I agree it would be a waste of time and effort that could be made better use of in doing something to get rid of the $#!t. Then once you have solved the initial problem it would be worth wiping your bum.

Cheers

Doug

Doug I have no doubt that your efforts are reasonable and practical AND effictive within practical terms, and that you continue to strive for greater dust extraction effectivness.

But you reinforce my exact point..........you are under no illusion that your dust extraction is "high efficiency" in any terms of the words.

AND most importantly you have added another measure to improve the air quality in your workshop.

One thing that we realy must consider is that much of what is written about dust extraction and air quality management is done so by those comming from cold climates where they work in shops with the doors and windows closed the majority of the year.

They can't reasonably discharge their extracted air outside because they will be shifting 600 to 1500 pluss cubic feet of warm air, out, to be relaced by cold air. Their heating systems simply would not keep up.

SO they push extraction effectivness and filtration heavily......and I believe in many cases fail or at least struggle to achieve good air quality.

In the warm climates however, a quantum improvement in air quality can be achieved by simply opening a few doors and windows, placing and very poorly filtered extractor outside and/or employing forced ventlation.

Make no mistake, my intention with this thread is deliberately provocative, to promote discussion.


cheers

Originally Posted by soundman

Doug I have no doubt that your efforts are reasonable and practical AND effictive within practical terms, and that you continue to strive for greater dust extraction effectivness.

But you reinforce my exact point..........you are under no illusion that your dust extraction is "high efficiency" in any terms of the words.

Soundman, I am not sure what your exact point is .

The subject of the thread seems to indicate that your point is that working on improving dust extraction is a fools's errand.

I agree with the factual information you have posted in this thread. Tools are poorly designed when it comes to efficient dust extraction and there is a limit to how efficient a home workshop dust collection system can be. I have pointed this out in other posts I have made.

However, where we disagree is that I cannot accept your contention that just because the machines are less than perfect and we cant run 5hp dusties that we should not even bother to try to get the best results we can.

As you say, "AND most importantly you have added another measure to improve the air quality in your workshop". This reinforces MY point, not yours. It shows that it IS worth making an effort and thinking a bit outside the box.

I cannot see in the foreseeable future that in a shed on a residential property I can reasonably expect to have sufficient available electrical power to run a sufficiently large dust extraction system to be considered ideal. That is unless the council approves my proposal to build a nuclear-powered generation plant under the peach tree in the back yard.

Doug

Soundman can you.....

Define what is a ridiculous amount of air

Show us some practical methods you and all the others (how many others?) have tried and that have failed

Detail the extractor(s) you have been using and their REAL performance figures

Others have achieved what you have failed to do, what else can I say. It is impossible to capture all the invisible dust, that much is certain and no one will argue that point. What is possible is to capture all the visible debris and thus by implication a lot of the invisible dust. I can show you a commercial workshop that does this but you need to come to Sydney. Prior to installing a good system they were drowning in dust and doubted that any system could keep the place clean. They are no longer doubt that it is possible and are ecstatic with the results.

I agree about the smoking scenario that is almost a parallel to the growing awareness of fine dust and I have drawn the analogy in the past. We all make our decisions in life based on what we see and hear so don't let my or others dissuade you from what you believe, it is your decision and I am not going to try and persuade anyone to believe what I believe. The results of that decision are what you and I have to live with. Given the tone of your initial post I would say that your decision and beliefs are set in stone, my apologies if that is not the case.

Simply put the camp is split in two, those who see the problems and those who don't.

NO chris you show me a workshop where they do not have wood waste apparant on the surfaces of the machines, where they have no need to sweep the floor to clear wood waste that has collected there, where there is no wood dust apparant on the high horisontal surfaces and where dust can not be smelled, tasted or be seen in what is blown out of the nose, then I will say that you have achieved high dust extraction efficiency.
AND this needs to be in a workshop where the machines are all used for significant periods of time.

I've seen some pretty clean home and small trade workshops, but I have yet to see one where I would consider the dust extraction " highly efficient".

Far from saying we should not try to improve the performance of our dust extracton systems, we need to make improvements to almost every machine we buy, or suffer with simply hopeless performance.


So does anybody have a big boy sander, that after a two or 3 hour session shows no signs of dust on the surfaces of the machine or on the floor arround it......hmmm
How about a dust extraction set up for a lathe that does not still require a broom and a shovel after a couple of hour session.
I could go on to almost every single machine or powertool any of us could have in our shops.

We might be able to get "good extraction" some of the time, but it will never be anywhere near perfect and there will always be some tasks or operations where the dust extraction simply fails miserably.

When we step across to large modern manufacture if they can be bothered about realy clean air, the machines are completly different to anything we could afford to have of for that matter fit in our workshops.
They will be doing things differently, because the methods and machines we use simply cant be made clean enough for their expectations.
One of the reasons for running CNC in timber, is because the work can be completely enclosed behind hoods, One of the reasons for running beam saws rather than open top saw benches is that the blade is completly enclosed at all times and the dust extraction can be close as damnit to 100%...a real concern where a lot of MDF is processed. Encllosed belt feed sanding machines are another example of machines that are specificaly purchased to controll dust.

My point is that we are kidding ourselves if we think the dust extraction on our stoneage equipment can ever be good enough that we do not have to use other methods, such as ventilation and PPE to achieve what is considered "healthy" opperation.

The camp is certainly not split in two, it is split many ways, there are those who simply don't care, those who just cant be bothered because its all too hard, those who simply cant afford it, those who are kidding themselves that because they have a dust extractor they are all right, those who chase an unachieveable ideal, those who have a product to sell, those who think we are all going to die...AND those of us who have realised that the rule of deminishing returns applies to dust extraction......it comes to a point where you have to do or spend an awfull lot to achieve a very small improvements.

cheers

Originally Posted by doug3030

I cannot see in the foreseeable future that in a shed on a residential property I can reasonably expect to have sufficient available electrical power to run a sufficiently large dust extraction system to be considered ideal. That is unless the council approves my proposal to build a nuclear-powered generation plant under the peach tree in the back yard.

Doug

Why does everyone persist with the furphy of needing big amounts of power. I can only comment on our system and it runs on between 8.0 - 9.5 amps continuously. I have never seen over that at any time. It peaks at 16 amps for literally .5 second on start up.

Remember chris the vast majority of small workshops run on a single 15 amp power circuit and that needs to run the machine doing the work too.......that is if the workshop has its own power circuit.

There are a great many out there, running their workshops on a single 10 amp powerpoint.

There are some of us fortunate enough to have two or more power circuits in our sheds, but we are the exception rather than the rule.

So yes 9 amps is an issue.

This is why 1 hp dust extractors still sell like hot cakes and the 2 HP dust extractor is by far the most common.

Ya 1hp extractors are going to pull 500 to 600CFM and ya 2 hp single bagger arround 1200 to 1500 CFM with a clean bag and no pipes attached, and that is optimistic.

There are some better and more efficient units arround but they are twice the price or more.

So yeh high airflow needs lots of power.

cheers

Soundman,

Thank-you very much. I really mean it. Until you pointed it out I really did not realize how bad the situation was and what I could be doing to my health. As you pointed out I have been wasting my dollars and my even more precious time chasing an impossible dream.

I have decided it just is not worth it any more and I am going to give up woodworking. Today I am going to photograph all my gear and timber and it will be advertised in the marketplace in the coming weeks.

Once the shed is empty I am going to put a snooker table and a darts board in there and hang a big-screen TV on the wall and put a beer fridge in the corner. This way my lungs will be safe and I should live a long happy life. I was a fool for even trying.

Doug.

Great......Righto then.......how much do ya want for ya thicknesser.

Originally Posted by soundman

Great......Righto then.......how much do ya want for ya thicknesser.

I haven't worked out the pricings yet.

Thicknesser is a carbatec ctj860 15". It is fitted with a well calibrated digital height gauge and will come with two spare sets of blades, one hss the other tungsten carbide. Its the model with the cast-iron wings, not the rollers. It has been well maintained and tuned. I will let you know a price when I have worked it out.

There will also be:

12' contractors saw with incra fence and LS positioner
2 x bandsaws
2 x lathes with a selection of chucks
incra router table with LS positioner and wonder-fence
4 x routers
belt and disk sander
drill press with woodpeckers table system
chisels, mallets, turning tools
2hp dust collector with home-made cyclone
1hp dust collector
heaps of timber nicluding ebony, mahogany, blackwood, gidgee, various burls, too much to list.

I really need to get busy and get it all up on the forum marketplace. I am hoping that people who were looking for similar gear at the www show next month might like to look at this well-maintained second-hand stuff and save themselves a few dollars.

Doug