Quite honestly, dust collect isn't something I thought much about when I first started woodworking. In fact, the Building Construction Trades shop in high school barely had any provisions for dust collection other than the floor and horizontal surfaces. For years my basement shop didn't have any, either. Then I used an old furnace squirrel cage fan in a little window to vent air to the outside. A little later I added a Craigslist Delta dust/chip collector system plumbed to the table saw and jointer and some of the other worst offenders. Then came the Wen ceiling mounted air circulator/dust collector. My lathe dust collection setup was woefully inadequate.

 

My old Delta lathe was benchtop mounted which didn't help much in allowing flexibility for design.

 

 

Last year, when I upgraded to the floor standing Jet lathe, I could do things a bit different. But, in my haste to get turning and some pressing projects, I decided to "make do".

 

 

This "hillbilly" hack was quick and easy.

 

 

 

 

Not Pretty or very efficient.

 

I wanted to improve this. The clothes hanger wire didn't stay in place. The hose opening was't in a great location. As @steven newman is fond of saying- "we have ways...". 

 

My first priority was that I didn't want to drill any holes in the lathe for mounting. Secondly, the mounting location needed to be somewhat flexible but at the same time hold securely. Some sort of clamping arrangement was in order (disclaimer: I over engineer everything)-

 

This is made from scrap white oak and designed so that when the bolts are tightened, it clamps the mount to the lathe frame

 

 

 

 

 

View from the underside-

 

 

Next, I'll need to figure out how to attach the hose and I 'm thinking about some sort of hood that will allow for efficiency yet not interfere with a variety of turning items.

 

As Stephen says, Stay Tuned!

This should prove an interesting project as it evolves.i suspect a good bit of time will be spent refining the design.

Tools tend to divide into two dust categories:  point and area.  Point dust control is a tool that focuses dust so that a single duct connection is effective (sanders, table saw, drill press, track saw).  Area dust control usually means the dust is released with so much kinetic energy, or so diffuse, that enclosing the operation and exhausting the enclosure is more effective (miter saw, router, lathe [long spindle]).  I have a 20x16 scoop in the center of my bench, and by positioning a tool there WITH a shroud enclosure (three sides), I get pretty good capture.  I'm working on a lathe shroud because it's hard to control/exhaust a 30" stretch of work (making pen blanks or even bowls would allow more point control).  Here's what I did for a miter saw (the lathe version will be more oriented to fine dust capture rather than cleanup):

I made a track system and mounted the hose on an adjustable  holder made from the handle of an old golf bag cart.  I can move it to focus exactly where I'm working and it works very well.  I turn mostly small items and found the larger the item the less effective it is.  I think the fine dust when sanding gets collected very well.

 

Edited December 18, 20205 yr by HandyDan

@PeteM and @HandyDan Thanks for the pictures and the ideas!

Well mine has been quite a trip also. The first iteration was mounted on a pipe (retail display) mounted to the wall. This allowed movement of the  collection hood to point it was needed.

 

This allowed good movement but to slide it was a stretch and took a lot of wall space. Then tried a setup hanging from the ceiling which I made from ply with a lattice of holes to reduce weight. No pic of that one. Now for a setup I really liked which I saw on the AAW forum. Several joints of pipe are used to accomplish a multi adjustable jointed system . There was a difference in the way he set this up from mine , part of which it was attached to a stand under the lathe. I attached mine to a cart to the right of the lathe and the bones of it are still there.

 

This is the mounting system I used on my Jet after the other was moved to the PM.

 

Now I am using another retail system which works well but lacks the flexibility of movement down the length of the lathe.

 

Don't know why the pic is sideways. There is more to the story but I will just say I made gates and transfer boxes to shift the vacum feed as well as a cyclone to drop out the heavy chips . I recently added a large Dust deputy to get more to drop out before the canister filter is hit and have not had to dump the bag since.

 

 

Well I forgot that in there somewhere was this dust hood which was way too large to collect well.

 

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by Gerald

My setup is pretty crude compared to what others are doing. I don't worry about capturing shavings which I believe is an exercise in futility. I do attempt to capture particles that would stay in the air. This idea came from a Carl Jacobson video about his camera mount a few years ago. It allows me to get the pickup very close to the bottom of a bowl or whatever I'm sanding. I also have two hanging air cleaners that run when I'm in the shop. For shavings, I have shower curtains to limit their travel. As added protection, when I'm sanding

I wear a Trend air shield pro.

 

 

 

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by Steve Krumanaker

Mine is pretty basic with a track mounted on the wall and an articulated arm. I also wear a Trend Air shield when turning. 
Paul

Edited December 19, 20205 yr by Masonsailor

Thanks @Gerald, @Steve Krumanaker and @Masonsailor for the images. I did a little more work but can already see my design is flawed. 

 

Connecting the hose to the mounting system-

I made a mounting board for the hose connection.

 

Top

 

 

Bottom

 

Then modified a hose connector to fit the hole

 

 

The hose connected

 

 

Up to this point, things seemed pretty good. I can move the lathe mount from one end of the lathe to the other. Next I made a temporary fitting to bring the collection opening closer to the work.

 

 

Well that's gonna work fine- NOT.  I failed to consider the various diameters of the turnings. For small stuff this might work but larger diameter/spindles this isn't what I need.

 

My original idea was to make a collection shroud around the horizontal table but everything I read indicated the larger the collection area/shroud, the less efficient the operation. That's why bringing the collection opening up near the turning is being considered. I think I'm going to have redesign the horizontal table to allow the hose to move towards/away from the lathe.

 

Back to the drawing board  Sketchup!

 

Keep the faith Lew. Creativity is a process!!

 

 Thanks to all of you for your ideas and pictures. I did have a 4" hose on my lathe and it worked. However, it cramped my small space badly and the vac noise is overwhelming. I've redesigned it in my mind and your pictures have helped. I can't move the vac, so ear plugs are the solution. After seeing the see thru plastic scoop Pete posted, it has given me other ideas. Don't use the 4" line, instead use two/three smaller hoses from the 4" line. Put the 2" hoses on a header that is the length of the lathe, on my mini, it won't be too large. Another job for my isolation that I never took time for.

Note that the area of a 2 inch hose is nowhere close to half the area of a 4 and reducing hose size also greatly reduces the overall cubic footage of  air that is moved. Better to use two 4 inch but that split will still reduce collection.

10 hours ago, Gerald said:

Note that the area of a 2 inch hose is nowhere close to half the area of a 4

When you double the radius, you quadruple the capacity.

 I have another solution in mind. If I can find a large floor vac attachment for 4" hose, I will bring it up from the bottom and direct it to my workpiece. I've seen some that are a foot or more wide. That should work well on my mini.

 

39 minutes ago, Ron Altier said:

 I have another solution in mind. If I can find a large floor vac attachment for 4" hose, I will bring it up from the bottom and direct it to my workpiece. I've seen some that are a foot or more wide. That should work well on my mini.

 

I have a little larger version of that. It might work if I can get it adapted.

Spent some time on Sketchup last evening. What do you think of this. The mounting method, to the lathe, stays the same but I added the sliding dovetail feature to permit the PVC elbow to be moved closer/farther from the turning location

Looks good Lew.  My only concern would be small chips and dust getting into the slide and cramming it up.  You might want to use straight sides and lock knobs to hold it in place.  remove the knobs for cleaning when necessary.    My track system binds up from time to time too.  I've been thinking of a new set up that uses a couple metal rods and eye bolts for the slide so the chips fall through. 

Thanks. That thought crossed my mind as well. I’m going to make the fit a little sloppy to see what happens. I have a piece of track on my drill press table and it is always clogging. But it may come to that. 

Lew if you look back at my post you will see that I uses mini channel and knobs to allow up and down movement of the hose in one configuration.

12 minutes ago, Gerald said:

Lew if you look back at my post you will see that I uses mini channel and knobs to allow up and down movement of the hose in one configuration.

I see that now. I’m hoping the dovetail configuration will work. I’ve been careful where using glue to assemble this one just in case another redesign is in the cards