Dust Collection for Newbies: Introduction to Dust Collection

hey newbie Dan here this video is an introduction to dust collection if you don't know anything about dust collection or maybe just a little bit this videos for you I'm going to explain the concept of dust collection the basic terms and together we'll put together a dust collection system for my garage workshop so that sounds interesting to you stick around listen like most things in life there's lots of options when it comes to dust collection systems and I'll talk about those options at the end of the video but for now let's just focus on the basics chances are since you're watching this video you already know what we mean by the word dust but just so we're on the same page we're talking about the sawdust grated when we cut wood using something like a router or a table saw or the fine dust created when we sand wood or even the shavings created by drilling wood the goal of a desk election system is to grab all these types of dust and collect them in a receptacle so they don't end up all over the floor and we might actually live longer if we're not breathing in all that dust in the air so let's start at the beginning I know the term shop vac is technically a brand name but I'm gonna use it as a generic term in this video kind of like Kleenex a shopback is the most basic dust collection system you can have other than just a broom using it you can go around the shop and vacuum up any dust that's lying around obviously it would be nicer if you could have the dust collected before it ends up getting all over everything many woodworking power tools have dust ports like this one on my table saw I can attach the vacuums hose to the port like this if you look inside the table-saw you can see that the dust port is attached to a plastic housing that goes around the saw blade when I turn on the vacuum I can actually feel and hear the air being sucked past the blade and back into the vacuum when I cut something most of the sawdust gets sucked down in a vacuum instead of ending up all over the place in theory anyway that's dust collection hooked up to the table saw and it's collecting dust pretty well what if I want to hook it up to the router table it's got a dust port so I can just take the hose off the table saws port and attach it to the router tables port for that matter I have a belt and disc sander that has a dust port so I'd like to hook up the shop back to that also so I can move the shop back around attaching it to each tools dust port when I need to though moving around like this is kind of a drag or we can come up with a way to have all the tools connected to the shop back at the same time so we don't have to move the vacuum at all so I placed my shop back at the end of my workbench I have a remote control power outlet I'm using so I don't have to walk over to the shop back each time I turn it on and off there's a link for this in the description below while I'm thinking about it I'd like to say thank you to all of my viewers who used the links of my videos descriptions to buy stuff it doesn't cost you anything extra and I get a small percentage of the sales and that helps support my channel so thank you very much I'm running some 2 inch PVC pipe along the back of my workbench I'll connect it to my shop back using a section of flexible hose and some clamps in each place where I want to connect to a power tool I need a drop the term drop comes from the idea that dust collection pipes are often attached to the ceiling and when you need to connect a power tool you drop a pipe or hose down from the main pipes on the ceiling I'm not running my pipes on the ceiling because they get in the way of the garage door but I'm still going to use the term drop to make a drop I'm using t-fitting here and I'll connect this flex form hose from Rockler with a flex forum host connected here it's easy to attach it to my belt and disc sander and I can also use it with my drill press in fact I have various tools that I take out only when I need them like my sanding station and my bandsaw and I can attach the host of them whenever I need to I'm running some more PVC pipe to the end of the workbench I want to connect my table saw and my router so at the end here I'll add a tea fitting for one drop and I'm using an elbow joint for the final drop now that I think about it I'd like to have a regular vacuum hose available to sweep up the floor so I'll add a tea for that drop also I'm not using any glue just dry fitting everything that's so it's relatively easy to take apart and adjust if needed also sometimes I do something stupid like little rag get sucked in and if it gets stuck anywhere along the way I can get to it easily for the vacuum hose drop I'm running some flexible tubing down the workbench leg and I can attach it to the leg so when I pull on the vacuum hose it doesn't pull straight against the tee for a vacuum hose I'm using this hose from Rockler that's expandable to something like 12 feet and when I add a sweeping attachment it lets me reach most places in the shop I'm running a section of flexible hose from this tea to my table-saw and using a clamp I use these special clamps from Rockler that are designed to fit in the valleys of dust OSes like this and lastly I'll run another section of flexible hose from the elbow joint to the router table you've probably already guessed what the problem is with this kind of setup when I turn on the shop vac there's too many open holes it's like a straw with a bunch of holes punched in it there's just no suction we need a way to block all the holes to accept the one we want to use that's where blast gates come in this is a blast gate when you close it it's more or less airtight not completely of course but it's enough for our purposes I got the blast gate from Rockler I mentioned Rockler lot because I have one close by but also because they have a great selection of dust collection stuff blast gates work best when the ports are vertical like this it's not mandatory but when they're horizontal like this sawdust can get in the slots where the door slides and sometimes that makes it difficult to close completely I put a blast gate at each of the drops so if I closed the other gates and open the one for the router table the shop back only sucks air from there if I close that gate and open the one for the table-saw that's the only host that draws a hare by the way these blasts gates don't quite fit into the tea and elbow fittings so I had to mold the PVC to get them to fit more on that later okay so what happens to all that dust well obviously it ends up in the dust collectors dustbin in this case it's the body of my shop vac and obviously when the bin gets full you need to empty it your dust collector will also have a filter so you'll probably need to clean and replace your filter at the same time cleaning this type of filters messy because the dust gets everywhere I usually take it outside when there's a breeze so the breeze takes the dust away just be careful where you stand and check to see who or what is downwind wouldn't be great if we didn't have to clean the filter and never have to buy a new filter again well there is a way to avoid having to clean the filter or at least not nearly as often that's what this is for in general terms this is known as a cyclone or vortex cyclones come in different sizes for different types of dust collectors some dust collectors come with their own cyclones for others you can buy them separately of course you don't have to have a cyclone if you don't want unless it's built into the dust collector it's completely optional all cyclones work basically the same way the cyclone usually sits on top of some sort of bin which ends up holding the dust for mine it's attached to this Home Depot bucket and I built a stand so it takes up less floor space I actually put one bucket inside another to help prevent the bucket from collapsing when the air flow gets stopped up the cyclone sits between the dust collector and the dust collection pipes when I run the dust collector the dust gets sucked into the cyclone the dust spins around and eventually falls into the bin below it the only thing that continues should the dust collector itself is air air that contains very little if any dust that means I don't have to clean the filter or at least not nearly as often as I said you don't have to have a cyclone if there isn't already one built into your dust collector but for me this has been one of the few things in life that not only lived up to my expectation let surpassed it since I'm trying to keep this video fairly generic I won't go into details about this particular cyclone except to say that it's a dust deputy from Oneida and I got it on Amazon for about $50 they make a version that has a bucket already attached for around $100 if you don't want to be bothered with attaching the cyclone to a bucket yourself there's other YouTube videos about the dust deputy so if you're interested look them up so let's make some dust the shop is empty and the filter is relatively clean the buckets under the cyclone are empty nothing up my sleeves the table-saw is first up I close all the gates except the table saws gate and then it cut some stock I've got some sawdust on my crosscut sled so I'll use my vacuum hose to sweep it up since the dust collector is still running I open the dust gate for the vacuum before closing the table saws gate if I close the table saws gate first no gates would be open and that's not a good idea when the dust collector is running see how handy it is to have a vacuum drop here when I'm done vacuuming I open and close the gates again and continue cutting now close the table saws gate and open the one over here which I'll use for the drill press I position the flexible hose where I want it in drill looking inside my shop vac you can see it's still empty and of course the filters clean in order to look in the bucket I have to remove the lid I got this cool tool from Amazon that makes it pretty easy to take the lid off I recommend it as you can see this is where the dust ended up some dust collection system or inches and summer six inches but we'll focus on mine which is two and a half inches two and a half inches give or take is the outside diameter of the des portes in my system like on my shop back my table saw in my router table two and a half inches give or take is the inside diameter of the hoses this allows them to fit over the various stuffs ports and clamps make sure the connection is tight some types of hoses have hard plastic tubes on the end these tubes are usually smaller in diameter make an offer fit inside a dust port instead of outside if you find yourself with things that don't fit together you can make adapters out of PVC which we'll cover in a moment PVC pipe measurements are always the inside diameter so 2 inch PVC pipe is around 2 inches on the inside the fittings and couplers that work with 2-inch PVC pipes like this tee also say they're 2 inches but in this case the 2 inches only refers to what size pipe they're designed to work with and truth' nothing in this fitting measures 2 inches schedule 40 PVC pipe is the most common kind of PVC pipe at least here in the United States the outside diameter of a 2 inch schedule 40 pipe is around 2 and 3/8 inches that means 2 and a half inch hoses have no problems fitting over them although you do need to clamp them down these 2 inch PVC pipes are almost small enough to fit inside two and a half inch dust ports with a little magic you can make them fit here's an example when I put a flexible hose over my shop vacs port there's a peg that sticks up and I'm worried it'll rip the hose so I want to make an adapter out of a short section of PVC pipe I'll mold one end to fit inside the port and then I can clamp the hose to the other end of the adapter so I don't have to worry about the peg so let's cut off a short section of PVC pipe for the adapter my recommendation is to use the hacksaw to cut PVC pipe in my experience it's the safest and easiest way to cut it just clamp the pipe down and using a hacksaw you'll be through it in a minute you can use a wooden clamp like this to hold the pipe down while you cut it or if you have something like this black & decker workmate it's easy to clamp it down another way to cut PVC is to use the cable saw like this but honestly the hacksaw is much easier to use you could try one of the PVC pipe cutters that are available but make sure to get one that can handle the diameter of at least two and 3/8 inches but all the ones I've seen have gotten very mixed reviews I strongly recommend against using a table saw to cut PVC pipe I used a table saw for a while and I thought I'd figured out how to do it safely I'm not gonna explain my technique however because it wasn't long before I had a PVC pipe literally explode while I was cutting it it sent pieces of PVC flying everywhere like shrapnel scared the crap out of me so needless to say do not use a table saw to cut PVC I've also read that you can cut PVC using a miter saw also known as a chop saw but since I don't have one I can't really say one way or another if you have a chop saw and find it cuts PVC safely leave a comment below whatever you use to cut PVC some people recommend that you are mask while you cut it so that's up to you when PVC is heated up enough it becomes moldable that means you can stretch it to fit around things here's some examples these two hoses are the same size but I need to connect them to each other so I cut a section of 2 inch PVC pipe heated it up and stretch it around the ends of the two hoses now I can connect them easily and as I mentioned previously each place I used a blast gate I had to heat up the PVC and Jam the blast gate into the PVC so it stretched enough to fit also these blast gates have a hole in them so you have to push them far enough in to cover the hole also make a pipe a little narrower so it can fit inside des portes I have a separate video on how to mold PVC and there's plenty of other YouTube videos available on the subject so be sure to check them out so once i've molded the PVC adapter it fits inside the shop vacs port just fine so here's some tips the most important is perfection is unattainable trust me you'll always have to sweep up something so don't get carried away with chasing after perfect your dust collection system can only be as good as your tools dust collection ability in other words if you get a lot of sawdust on the floor underneath your table saw it might be the saws fault not your dust collection system so check for YouTube videos with tips to improve your tools dust collection ability minor efficiency provements can be made here and there but remember that these are minor and may or may not have a noticeable effect for example two 45-degree elbows are more efficient than one 90-degree elbow or so I've been told likewise why connectors are supposedly more efficient than T connectors if you can find flexible tubing that's smooth on the inside it's probably more efficient than tubing that's ribbed on the inside if you have other efficiency tips please leave them in the comments thanks dust collectors come in lots of sizes and types as I said earlier some use four or six inch pipes some are huge and take up a lot of floor space some are smaller the only type I have experience with is what I have right now this shop back in two and a half inch pipes and hoses as for what I currently have in my shop this works fine what a different system work better I don't know honestly but for now I'm happy with what I have with that set I encourage you to search through YouTube videos to see what types of dust collectors are available and make your own decisions hopefully watching this video will help you understand those other videos better well that's it I hope you enjoyed this video if you did please give it a thumbs up and if you like what I do in this channel please consider subscribing and click the notification icon so you'll get notified when I put new videos out also be sure to leave a comment if you have questions or suggestions remember to check this video's descriptions for links to products and other videos you might find useful thanks you

Channel: The Newbie Woodworker

Views: 780,513

Rating: 4.9244113 out of 5

Keywords: dust collection, dust collection system, dust collection introduction, dust collection for beginners, dust collection pvc, dust collection system pvc, dust collection pipes, dust collection hoses, dust collector, shop vac dust collector, shop vac dust collection, shop vac, dust deputy, oneida dust deputy, cyclones, dust collection cyclones, dust collection buckets, pvc dust collection, pvc dust collection system, blast gates, dust collection blast gates

Id: c2sWwWbAayM

Length: 17min 5sec (1025 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 21 2017