Thread: shop vac or dust extractor

It depends what you are trying to achieve.

If all you want to collect are chips then pretty much anything will do that. If you want to reduce the amount of fine (invisible) dust, which has far greater health implications than chips, then the only way to do that is with far greater air flow than any 1HP DC (at most 200 cubic ft/min CFM) or vac (typically 100 CFM) can achieve. For a table saw about 800 CFM is the minimum given it has to be split between the cabinet and the OH blade guard). Same for thicknessers and jointers. You might see your small DCs or even vac is collecting the sawdust but they simply don't capture most of the fine dust and that is what you are breathing in.

Just having a DC with enough flow is still not enough. Most new DCs and vac leak and the older they get the more likely they are to leak especially if they are towed around inside a shed. Of the DCs and Vac I have tested the leakiest were almost always those that were moved around inside a shed. The safest place for any vac or DC is outside the shed, or inside the shed inside an air tight enclosure. After using a machine any DC should be run for some time thereafter and the smaller that DC the longer it needs to run. An outside location helps get rid of the DC noise.

Yes this approach does required fixed ducting but this also eliminates having the DC or vac underfoot all the time and having to disconnect and reconnect the vac all the time. It's all too easy to take a short cut and not bother for a quick cut or two not to do this - heck that cut didn't generate much dust but unfortunately the fine dust simply cannot be seen.

It sounds like you might need to spend a bit of time reading around inside the dust forum to improve your wood dust knowledge.

If you are an intermittent WW (ie don't spend whole days inside your shed) then forced ventilation is a possible way of handling the fine dust. It depends on the size of your shed but keeping the largest opening into your shed open and continuously running a couple of bathroom type exhaust fans is a relatively low cost solution. There are much better quiet fans available and while they cost a bit more they have better air flow than basic exhaust fans.

Yep lots of things to look into, but as you mentioned just a weekend wood worker.

I think I'm going to look into a bigger stationary collection system and just get a better shop vac for cleaning up the stuff on the floor.

Any recommendations for a wet and dry shop vac?