Part of the new shop build is going to be a better miter saw station.   Dust collection always seems to be a problem with these guys (I guess Festool might the the exception, but I'm not spending as much on a miter saw as I did on my Unisaw)

 

Anyway, I did steal a Festool idea.   They have a little rubber(?) flap that channels the chips from the saw blade into the blade cover / vac chute.  My Hitatchi saw didn't have one of these.  I did have a little plastic piece that broke off very early.   So I fashioned a chip director from duct tape.   Seems to improve things a bit

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A second thing was to get a $20 shop vac on sale at Menards, hook it up to a master-slave switch so it comes on when I pull the trigger on the saw and runs 3-4 seconds after I turn it off.

I have a poor-man's dust hood (moving box) that is just so-so and hope to build a better one with the miter station.

 

 

Anyone else have a clever solution?

 

It's currently close enough to the dust collector to run another 4" line to it, somehow.

 

 

Edited April 27, 20179 yr by kmealy

My PC had one of those rubber flaps. No parts available so I made one out of a plastic bottle (the ones drugs come to the pharmacy in) and it works much better than none. Have remade my rear collector twice and still not large enough.

I have a box under the saw and the pickup gets both the blade under dust and the rear chute........When I take the time to turn on the DC.

The area behind my SCMS is open so, I installed a job site hood.  

 

The kinetics of dust off a radial saw tend to ignore small-bore dust collection hoses unless you operate them at Ludicrous Speed.  I built the bench so it has a dust scoop behind it (with screen over the openiing because I kept dropping things in it !).  I tried several enclosures, but this one is better than any thing else I tried.  Clear plastic cloth allows light in.  Curved back deflects downward (flat wall behind, when used as containment, encouraged dust to bounce off uncontrolled).  I've made one mod since this pic:  slot under right side foot allows cord to pass under foot.  It's hooked to a 1 hp DC and 4" duct.  Since I cleaned up the geometry of the DC, this is capturing about 90+% of the dust, roughly twice what earlier experiments produced.  The more room you allow behind the saw before hitting the wall/shroud/whatever, the better the capture, but for a short-coupled installation, this does really well.  I saw the basic idea of the curved shroud on some dust hood that costs couple/three hunnred bucks.  This is a kluge, but it really works well.  Easy to pick up and set aside when changing tools in the well.  Works really well with spindle sander and belt/disc sander.  There's another trick to it:  when using a "hosed tool" (kreg jig, ROS sander, etc.), I set the hood aside, pull out the screen, and then hook the 1-1/4" hose to the tool and drop a couple feet of hose into the DC hole.  It creates enough suction to do well.  But, if you find a transition piece 1-1/4 x 4, capture is roughly doubled.  Overall, a very satisfactory arrangement.  Only took a decade to figure out!

  

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Only took a decade to figure out!

 

I'm going to keep this in mind.  It seems like a bit of a kludge because you use painter's tape and not duct tape ("The sign of true craftsmanship is smooth duct tape." -- Red Green) 

39 minutes ago, kmealy said:

 

I'm going to keep this in mind.  It seems like a bit of a kludge because you use painter's tape and not duct tape ("The sign of true craftsmanship is smooth duct tape." -- Red Green) 

Yeah, like i'm the only one who does a mock up and never takes the next step!?  The curved side pieces are also scraps, made in two sections and kluged together.  I have every intention of making a "real one" any day now!  The original intent was to tape it "temporary" and then use staples in the "final".  The vivid blue does serve a purpose:  makes the assembly stand out when I set it somewhere...somewhere.