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  1. #1
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    Default Hammer K3 Improving dust collectionn

    We Hi,

    i recently purchased a second second hand Hammer K3 from a fellow forum member and after bringing it home, reassembling and a bit of fettling I just needed a dusty to start using it. I picked up a 3hp Ledacraft on Friday and today I made some adapters to connect from the 150mm dust outlet to the 120mm saw inlet via a couple of metres of 125mm Flexi hose. This is all temporary And improvements to the dusty and piping will happen in due course.

    Anyway, after starting the dusty I seemed to have pretty decent air flow at the end of the hose, no science just feeling and it seemed OK to me if not as good as it could be. As soon as I hooked the hose to the saw though the suction and airflow dwindled to asthmatic wheeze. A few test cuts showed it was pretty pathetic. I should add the caveat that the blade guard was broken on the machine so that wasn’t fitted and I wasn’t extracting from there at all, but none the less it was still terrible.

    So the problem was pretty apparant, the 120mm inlet immediately reduces to 94mm and a 100mm Flexi hose that goes to a blade shroud that is also a choke point with only a 115 x 35mm outlet.

    Clearly there is a lot of room for improvement but before I go reinventing the wheel has anyone else made any modifications to their K3. The easiest option would be to just enlarge the port, do away with the blade shroud and extract from the cabinet, however I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this. Alternately I can rebuild the shroud improve the size and transition to round pipe and open the outlet size. It goes without saying I will do something about the blade guard and am leaning towards a Felder style sliding blade Gaurd extraction setup.

    3CE2D373-4C77-493F-BA34-A3EEAEF5C750.jpgFF4E9FED-82C6-48EB-A2CB-A3873B4AD2A3.jpg

    Chers Andrew

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  3. #2
    Join Date
    Apr 2001
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    Perth
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    Default

    AJ, at some stage I plan to increase the hose size to 150mm in mine. At the moment the dust control is not too bad via a 2 hp DC, but once I get a larger DC (next big purchase), this mod will be made.

    It also occurs to me, having seen the SawStop set up, that a larger shroud around the blade is possible.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  4. #3
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    Default

    That’s interesting Derek, I guess the extraction at the blade guard helps a lot!

    I am am thinking I will enlarge the port to 125mm for now. I will also have further extraction from the blade guard which I think will be in the order of 75mm pipe, so combined should improve things dramatically.

    Cheers Andrew

  5. #4
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    Default

    AJ, here are a few photos I took when I received my K3 about 2 years ago.

    The small shroud ...



    The small hose ...



    Yet, this is the expulsion of saw dust without any dust extraction ...



    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  6. #5
    Join Date
    May 2011
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    Albury
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    I'm not familiar with the blade guard and extraction set up on these saws but is it possible that the collection is starved of make-up air? You need good flow into the guard and collection pipe to get a decent result. The air has to come from somewhere and if you've got a fairly well sealed cabinet the DE has no hope of generating a decent flow.

    Just saw Derek's last post. What a piece of crap, no wonder it doesn't work very well! Huge scope for improvement there.

  7. #6
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    Default

    Your pictures show exactly what I have Derek. I haven’t tested what came out of the port, I just know after the first round of the 5 cut test on 600mm square piece of 16mm MDF my table had a good covering of dust.

    I don’t think that air into the cabinet is an issue, lots of holes in the cabinet. It really is very obvious where the choke in the system is, just a matter of how I fix it.

    cheers Andrew

  8. #7
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    Default

    Make sure the internal hose is not blocked and has no holes in it. I run mine on a Clearvue and it is still crap and eventually when I have no jobs on it is going to cop a 150mm PVC pipe coming off the dust shroud to the cabinet wall and a bigger 150mm port. An overhead extraction hook up is just about essential for these saws to reduce the dust problem. These saws as Derek will atest like swallowing off cuts as the standard table insert leaves a big gap around the blade. There was a discussion on this a few weeks ago so it would pay to have a look at that as well.
    CHRIS

  9. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by AJ. View Post
    I just know after the first round of the 5 cut test on 600mm square piece of 16mm MDF my table had a good covering of dust.
    That is to be expected without any above the table extraction.

  10. #9
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    Perth
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    AJ, as I mentioned earlier, my dust control equipment is borderline compared to what is possible. I supplement the DC with overhead to a Festool CT26E and 2" hose. This captured a lot of the overhead dust. It is just a temporary measure.



    There are a number of upgrades I have made to my K3. These include a paddle off switch, which works fantastically ...



    ... added a second hand wheel ...



    .. a zero clearance insert ...



    .. and built on a router table (in the background). In the foreground is a Wixey DRO ..



    I'll leave it to Chris to mention the F&F jig.

    Regards from Perth

    Derek
    Visit www.inthewoodshop.com for tutorials on constructing handtools, handtool reviews, and my trials and tribulations with furniture builds.

  11. #10
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    Default

    OK, seems like a lot of my issue is the lack of overhead extraction, which I will take care in due course. In the meantime I think I can increase the area of the choke points in the under blade area by around 300%, so will do that first.

    I have a CT26 so might cobble that up to the broken guard as an interim measure.

    As for the Wixey and the Fritz and Franz jig, I am all over those like a bad rash, both next on my to do list as far as the saw is concerned. I also plan on upgrading the hand wheel, that plastic has to go, stay tuned for that upgrade.

    I have already made my own version of the upgraded flip stop for the cross cut rail.

    DCF0380E-C89B-42BC-AF66-CB65AE259E94.jpg
    Attached Images Attached Images

  12. #11
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    Check the fence square the easy way



    It is worth watching all Sam's videos
    CHRIS

  13. #12
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    So the good news first. Upgrading the outlet on the saw to 125mm was pretty easy and straight forward. I had some 125mm exhaust pipe that was perfect, cut a piece off, add a flange and enlarge the hole in the cabinet and that slotted straight in.

    22E53442-2209-4810-8032-3066532E2E50.jpg2830AF12-8672-4D37-A5DE-D79B704884A7.jpg

    Thats is where the easy bit stopped, modifying the chute has been extremely problematic bordering on probably not worth the effort. There is a reason they made the chute and outlet so small, because there is barely any usable room to make it bigger. There seems like there is lots of space, until you lower the blade or even worse tilt it, then you realise something gets in the way just about anyway you try to expand it. Long story short after countless attempts the only area to work with is to expand the chute towards the front of the machine and I have fitted the 125mm collar at nearly a 45 degree angle, the collar is also now oval or oblong instead of round. I will post some pictures when it’s all welded together.

    Fitting 150mm hose to the chute in my opinion is not only impossible but also pointless as you will still have a choke point at the bottom of the chute. I will be optimistic and say I have gained 50% in area from the worst point, but that was coming off a very low base, so still likely to be ordinary at best.

    cheers Andrew

  14. #13
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    Somewhere in the archives there is a thread showing how it was done using sheet metal but don't ask me where it is or how to find it. The thread may not even make sense as a lot of pictures in the forum were lost some years ago.
    CHRIS

  15. #14
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    So some pictures of the modified chute, probably doesn’t mean a great deal without a picture of the original to compare to, but I like to think I improved the restricted outlet size by 50%. That is way below what I had hoped but the best I could do.

    E845AE4C-E882-41F6-B37A-5E7982BEB184.jpg2A0B611C-1468-4D41-A497-CF9D63C9DFED.jpg1C3CB419-2E0D-4D8C-AE6B-99D864733B59.jpg

    Starting the dust extractor and then hooking up the hose the improvement is quite stark, you can tell straight away the dusty isn’t chocking as much as it was. I can also now feel a significant air flow at the blade. A quick repeat of the 5 test cut showed a significant improvement in the amount of visible dust collected, I would guess the dust on the table top was in the order of 80% less, much better than I had expected. When I add an overhead dust collection port hopefully I can all but eliminate the dust.

    Cheers Andrew

  16. #15
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    Don't use the 5 cut method, do it the way Sam Blasko does it, way quicker and possibly more accurate. Can you explain how & what you did and is the hose now 150mm?
    CHRIS

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