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After making a home-brew extension wing to hold my Rockler (Jessem) router lift, I struggled with dust collection. The first time I cut a 3/8" dado in some MDF I was horrified to see the fine MDF dust spraying a notebook computer I use to operate a little CNC machine. I have a very small shop in a shared-use basement, and I can't tolerate much saw dust in the air.
My first solution was to stick a port in the table, about eight to ten inches left of the bit. I connected the shop vac and was happy to see the dust thrown from the bit directed at the hole, getting sucked up by the vac. I knew I was building a fence, so I figured I'd add dust collection at the fence for edge routing and use the dust port I added to the table for dados. There were problems w/ my surface port (can you say hold-down?). But it seemed workable.
Time went on and I built a very kewl fence (if I do say so myself) and did some routing and had a blast. But I wanted to build a newer router extension. The one I was using was actually V2 (the original, V1, didn't hold a router). And when I made V2, I only laminated the top. I sealed the bottom and edges with poly. I then read a technical article from Formica saying that sealing with poly wasn't an acceptable substitute for laminating both sides in my application.
So... I was building V3 of the extension wing when I had occasion to use V2 to cut the hole for the router lift. And dust went EVERYWHERE. Of course, neither the fence with edge collection or the "dado port" were any good for this. The surface port was covered by the V3 table, the fence was several inches away from the cut, and I was cutting all the way through so dust blew right up in the air.
I had thought several times about a down-draft enclosure. I had read positives and negatives. I was concerned about how well it would work. With no dust collection those straight bits were really tossing the dust. Would the down-draft box be able to pull enough air to overcome that force? My overwhelming concern was dust in the multi-purpose basement, so I figured I had to at least try. So when I was done with V3 of the top, I built a down-draft box. It is actually a drawer (so it can be easily removed for upgrades).
I've included some pics.
I'm pretty happy with the way it has turned out. First of all, it ELIMINATES all dust under any conditions. And while I realize that it is probably less healthy for the router to have this stuff sucked through it on the way to the dust port, I have accepted that as a reasonable compromise. I'll happily remove the router (periodically), take it outside, and blast it out with an air compressor (which is a smart thing to do with any motor used in a dusty environment, anyhow).
Note the 1.5" exit hole for the router power cord. I had originally thought I'd need to make a plug to reduce this size, and had figured out a real nifty way to do this. But when I was experiementing I learned that covering this hole resulted in massive hold-down on top of the table, so I'm going to leave the 1.5" hole open around the cord.
So I have ideas for my V2 fence and then I'm onto some REAL projects. Kids wanna build bird houses. And I need some wall storage units.
My first solution was to stick a port in the table, about eight to ten inches left of the bit. I connected the shop vac and was happy to see the dust thrown from the bit directed at the hole, getting sucked up by the vac. I knew I was building a fence, so I figured I'd add dust collection at the fence for edge routing and use the dust port I added to the table for dados. There were problems w/ my surface port (can you say hold-down?). But it seemed workable.
Time went on and I built a very kewl fence (if I do say so myself) and did some routing and had a blast. But I wanted to build a newer router extension. The one I was using was actually V2 (the original, V1, didn't hold a router). And when I made V2, I only laminated the top. I sealed the bottom and edges with poly. I then read a technical article from Formica saying that sealing with poly wasn't an acceptable substitute for laminating both sides in my application.
So... I was building V3 of the extension wing when I had occasion to use V2 to cut the hole for the router lift. And dust went EVERYWHERE. Of course, neither the fence with edge collection or the "dado port" were any good for this. The surface port was covered by the V3 table, the fence was several inches away from the cut, and I was cutting all the way through so dust blew right up in the air.
I had thought several times about a down-draft enclosure. I had read positives and negatives. I was concerned about how well it would work. With no dust collection those straight bits were really tossing the dust. Would the down-draft box be able to pull enough air to overcome that force? My overwhelming concern was dust in the multi-purpose basement, so I figured I had to at least try. So when I was done with V3 of the top, I built a down-draft box. It is actually a drawer (so it can be easily removed for upgrades).
I've included some pics.
I'm pretty happy with the way it has turned out. First of all, it ELIMINATES all dust under any conditions. And while I realize that it is probably less healthy for the router to have this stuff sucked through it on the way to the dust port, I have accepted that as a reasonable compromise. I'll happily remove the router (periodically), take it outside, and blast it out with an air compressor (which is a smart thing to do with any motor used in a dusty environment, anyhow).
Note the 1.5" exit hole for the router power cord. I had originally thought I'd need to make a plug to reduce this size, and had figured out a real nifty way to do this. But when I was experiementing I learned that covering this hole resulted in massive hold-down on top of the table, so I'm going to leave the 1.5" hole open around the cord.
So I have ideas for my V2 fence and then I'm onto some REAL projects. Kids wanna build bird houses. And I need some wall storage units.
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