Relative Dust collection between miter saw and table saw.

[LCHIEN]

Table saw vs. Miter saw

I know this is an old thread but its quite a good one: http://www.bt3central.com/showthread.php?t=55591

One thing we didn't mention in the conversation is that there's a major difference in one other thing about Miter saw vs Table saw.

Probably because of the fixed cutting blade of the table saw, good dust collection is actually fairly easy. A DC attached to the bottom and a smaller hose attached to the blade guard will get most of the saw dust produced by a table saw.

OTOH, the Miter saw is one of the messiest tools I have in my shop. The cutting head moves up and down and can swing from side to side (miters) as well as tilt both ways (dual bevel) and throws dust all over the place. There's a bag that is attached to a tube tangential to the blade shroud but that only catches a small fraction of the dust. The rest is thrown every which way. I at one time considered building a large funnel shroud to go behind the saw, but there's really no room for that. Now that I've got a 12" saw there's even less room.

Anyone solved the miter saw dust problem reasonably?

[wardprobst]

I can't say I've solved it but...I bought an earlier version of this stand http://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-Mo...8#.UmhbHxai30c
If weather permits I roll it out of the shop or at least over to the doors. A side benefit is the saw stores in less space is easy to roll out of the way.
I've thought about the hood (one version is call the Big Gulp) but my work around has kept it from being necessary. I use a miter box or BT3 for shorter cross cuts.
HTH,
Dale

[LCHIEN]

blowing it outdoors is not exactly what I had in mind when I asked about improved dust collection... that would be more like dust dispersion.

[trungdok]

I'm not sure how your saw is designed, but the one I have (a Craftman) has a semi open bottom. Lots of the dust goes through the slit on top and end up in the bottom of the saw. I haven't done this, but I bet you'd be able to collect most of the dust by creating an opening underneath that slit and attach a dust collection chute to it as well as where the dust bag is.

[chopnhack]

Can't say that I have solved it, but from various searches, the folks that have the most success often have an enclosure built around their saw with d.c. connected. I know its not the answer you wanted to hear, but in my research, this seems to be both a common and effective way of dealing with the m.s. dust issue.

[Woodboy]

Loring,

Did you ever find a good 12" miter saw / hood / dust control option? Gotta a great new cyclone and now I want to attack the biggest offender in the shop - my 12" miter saw that is built into a "station". Now much room directly behind, but I can now get a 6" duct to it and just have to design a good wrap around collector / hood affair.

Can't decide if I want to drop a 6", or 4" line with blast gate down to it. The other question is weather, or not to use the little 1" back port, or just seal it off. Maybe a line to the back port and a plenum type area in the bottom where the walls can direct the dust with the help of gravity.

Just need some design help to me started, otherwise it will be a purely trial and error project.

[cwsmith]

I totally agree with your appraisal on the miter saw dust problem. That is certainly part of the reason that I use it rarely. I have an early edition of the Ridgid 10" CMS (not a slider) which I purchased in 2005. One of the first things I noticed was that the dust chute was easily clogged because there were fins cast into the plastic. When that happened, almost all of the dust would be bounced forward and to the sides. Cure was to cut away those ribs, so the passage was open, and then I would use my 12-gal shop vac which was at least some help.

But even then, saw dust was pretty much everywhere around the setup. I have my CMS mounted on a plywood base which in turn mounts to the Ryobi CMS stand. Generally that allows me to move the saw to where it's needed, like in the room where I'm cutting trim, etc.

Once in position, I simply place a tarp on the floor and hang one behind the saw's location. While much escapes the shop vac, at least it is contained somewhat by the tarps and is easier to clean up when the day's project work is done.

Beyond that, I try to use my RAS for as much as possible. With that, I have a "box" designed to contain the debris with the help of the vac hook-up. I'm sure with a dust collector, the little spread that presently occurs would almost disappear.

CWS

[dbhost]

From what I have noticed after having the bag off of my saw while it is disconnected from the DC during reconstruction is...

#1. Far more dust that is being given credit to goes up the skinny little tube port thing to where the bag is supposed to be. Don't believe me, take your bag / hose off and let it fly and see what happens. It's NOT pretty...

#2. My biggest success dust collection wise with the miter saw was with the shop built box / hood and a semi circular back. again needing to be rebuilt in my remodeling, I had a prototype of plywood mocked up and tested. I had some clearance problems, but once done it really worked well..

[Cochese]

I've watched enough videos of the Kapex and experimented with mine to say that Dave is 100% correct - get enough suction on the dust chute, get a long enough deflector behind the saw, and you'll get most of the dust.

I'm going to get a little smaller diameter hose for the next version of my cabinet, and extend the little deflector lower. Zero clearance inserts should help as well.

If I can make the hose detachable equal to or just lower than the surface the saw sits on, I can either brush or air hose the debris toward the open hole while the vac is running to get anything left behind.

[jussi]

I just bought a Kapex and it by far has the best dc I've seen on a mitersaw (without any modifications or add-ons). That said it's not completely dustless. It leaves around 10% of dust from the cut. But they're usually the larger pieces. I've read a couple of posts on fog where kapex owners said they bought or built dust hoods and claim it gets pretty much 100%. I don't have the room to do that so I'll be content vacuuming up the 10% of dust the saw leaves behind. As mentioned, one thing that helps is the size of the hose. When I switch from a 27mm to a 36mm hose there was noticeable difference. Another feature that helps with the dc is how large the "scoop" or chute is that goes behind the blade. The kapex has a much larger one than others I've seen.

As far as me tablesaw is concerned, one of my main projects this year is to get much better dc for it. I have a excalibur dust guard on my saw but the run is too far for my 1.5hp dc and hardly picks anything up at all. The suction on the dust guard isn't strong enough to pick up anything. So I want to get a smaller, maybe wall mounted unit dedicated to the tablesaw and put it right next to it.

[LCHIEN]

funny you should resurrect this thread.
I got a 12" HItachi recently and even more recently affixed a shop vac hose to the dust bag collection. While its not perfect I figure it gets about 80% of the dust as opposed to 5-10% that the bag that came with it gets.

the port in the back was just a tiny hair under 2.00". I found that PVC pipe sold for central vacuum systems has a 2.00" OD, so I used it and a matching elbow (so it doesn't stick out too far in the back) for a press fit into the dust port. After the elbow another short piece of 2.0" OD pipe snugly fit into a swivel hose fitting. Some flex hose to allow the miter saw head to be positioned, swing, tilt and miter-angle and it connected straight to the Shopvac.

picture below, yeah its dusty but I was trying with and without the vac on.

[capncarl]

I was in the Rockler store this weekend looking for components to build a cms dust collector. About the only thing that I found that was specific to this job was the pan that goes under a contractor table saw. It had a 2 inch pickup in the center. My cms is space limited behind it so that 2 inch pickup with an elbow and the pans depth easily added another 12" to 16" depth behind the saw. That's not happening. The saw swings about 32" inches so the back of the dust collection device must be greater than 32". I will start planning on builiding an enclosure to contain the dust in one area with the vacuum from the dust collector keeping the airborn dust from excaping the enclosure. I can't see any good way of improving the dust collection on this Hitachi itself.
capncarl