I've had it with my sliding miter saw. I need your help with dust collection ideas!

[dbhost]

So my surround keeps a lot of the dust, most more or less contained to the miter saw bench, but I am certain fines are blowing in the air, and the bench gets dusted up really fast.

Next to NO dust goes up the factory dust port.

So those of you that have rear slide, sliding miter saws like the Chicago Electric, Rigid, Ryobi, Craftsman, etc... and not the front slide as those are super easy to figure out, if you have figured out a good way to collect the sawdust that pukes off of hte blade PLEASE share your ideas / designs.

Simply put, my current design can at best be considered a semi containment / cleanup system.

Thanks.

[LCHIEN]

I have a 2-/12" hose from my Hitachi 12" miter non-slider saw connected to a dedicated small shop vac (actually a Ridgid).with a clear hose.

I can see a major slug of sawdust fly through the hose when I make a cut.

There's still a fair amount thrown off when making the cut but a lot goes into the vac. I've sort of resigned myself to that happening.

[dbhost]

I have been accused of overthinking dust collection plenty. A non slider, or a front slider is a lot easier as you can get a dust hood, even one fabbed up out of rubber sheeting like toolbox drawer liner material, right up in there with a 2.5 or 4" hose. Mind you, I use my miter saw a LOT of cross cuts of stock under I think the limit is 16". So there is a LOT of throw between the back of the saw, and the workpiece. And honeslty the Chicago Electric dust port, being 1.25" is there just to check a box and say they included a dust port. I do use a mask and the overhead filter when I use the miter saw, but I stil get a lot of dust everywhere...

I had tried with the shop vac previously. No real improvement....

[twistsol]

Here is what I found with dust collection on my Kapex.

Connecting the factory dust port to a big dust collector did almost nothing. By the time the airflow was choked down from an 8" pipe to the 35mm port on the Kapex, there wasn't enough airflow to capture the big chunks of dust.

I added a dust hood behind it attached to the dust collector which pulled the fine dust out of the air into, but didn't have the air velocity to grab the big chunks.

Enter the belt and suspenders solution. I have a tool triggered shop vac in the cabinet under the miter saw attached to the port. That gets 80% of the big chunks and the fines that make it into the port. The dust collector is still attached to the hood behind the saw and that seems to get the fines. I'm not seeing any accumulation of fine dust, but haven't measured air quality.

There is still a bit large dust on the bench behind the saw which I blow into the hood at the end of the day.

[dbhost]

Wow, even the Kapex has trouble with dust collection? I thought it was jus the cheapies... I have to neck down a shop vac hose to fit, but I am considering doing that belt and suspenders approach as you refer to it... Just amazes me how much dust / chips blow everywhere no matter what I try with this thing...

[capncarl]

I though the Kapex was better than that too! I don’t believe it was designed with any thought given for it to be hooked to a dust collector at all, rather one of the
Festool Hepa CT vacuum cleaners. That is what they sell and no need to think they intended any of their tools to be connected to a competitors product! The demonstrations I’ve seen using the Kapex was virtually dust free.. and they were using the Festool CT 48 vacuum.

I don’t think there is any way to control the dust belching from a miter saw short of moving it to the center of your back yard, I have my 10” Hitachi compound slider in a enclosed hood with the full 6” Clear Vue pulling on the hood and a 2.5” vacuum cleaner hose on the blade connection and some dust does escape out the front. The 2.5 vacuum cleaner hose is connected to the 6” ClearVue piping so not a lot is happening here and would be best connected to a high pressure shop vacuum. I guess I need to build up a 2.5” vacuum piping system for a central shop vacuum. How far can you successfully pipe 2.5” and still get a decent vacuum pressure?

notice that the hood enclosure has thin clear plastic curtains closing off the front openings. This does help a lot. I believe that regardless of how much dust control you throw at the slider it must be much better thought out than my example here! The slider manufacturers don’t help out any , so without replacing your blade covers with something that has some decent ports I don’t think it is ever going to be great.

[dbhost]

The back yard is tempting, very, very tempting. But I am also an idiot that likes to cure insomnia with crosscutting lumber at 2:00 A.M. Good thing the garage is insulated so my neighbors can't hear the saw. Now I do NOT use the planer at that time!

[LCHIEN]

I'd like to do something like that but room seems to be at a premium these days... takes quite a bit of space.

[twistsol]

Note that the Kapex was the best at dust collection when it was introduced to the US in 2008. They advertised 80% collection with one of the CT dust extractors and it pretty much hits or exceeds that mark. It is also intended to be a job site saw, not built to be used primarily in a shop.

I get grumpy about the sawdust left on the bench, and then get a reality check when I take it somewhere and don't connect a CT to it. I've forgotten about the mounds of sawdust behind my old Delta miter saw.

All of the CT extractors are rated at 140-148 CFM which is the same as my el cheapo Ridgid. They're just alot quieter and with a bag and filter, don't belch the fine dust back into the air. Also, I was unable to run the Kapex and my Ridgid vac on a 20 amp circuit without tripping the breaker often. My Kapex is plugged into the laughingly described budget friendly Festool CT15.

[capncarl]

I do believe that this is the first time I can remember a thread going this long without someone chiming in saying their miter saw didn’t belch out any sawdust! Strange!

[dbhost]

So far we've got both belching, and puking sawdust. I'm afraid to see what's next...

[cwsmith]

I don't have a sliding miter saw, but do have a radial arm saw. I know that my 10" miter saw is almost impossible to control the dust blow back and as you know, it goes everywhere. I use it rarely and then try to drape a drop cloth behind it where the dust will fall to the floor... everywhere.

My RAS is positioned in my shop with a wall behind it but still it used to be a dust problem. So, here is my fix: I built a box behind it with a vacuum pickup in the bottom. The box sits behind the blade and is mounted on the table I built. Still, the sawdust would blow back into the box area faster than the vac could suction it out. My 'box' shrouds the saw on both sides and the top but dust still blew back onto the table.

So my fix was to hang a somewhat ridgid 5 mil plastic flap on the front edge of the box, and that resolved all but a little dust from coming back onto the the tabel. It works quit well. See the picture attached. I don't know if this can be adapted to your purpose, but give it a look. Basically, without the flap, the dust just kicks back on the table. With the flap, the blade pushes the dust under the curtain and is blocked by the curtain from coming back onto the table. It's not perfect but it works quite well for me.

CWS