Thread: Dust Collectors - Wood

Can anyone recommend a dust collector in a smallish workshop for mainly filtering out wood dust generated mainly by sanding knife scales?
I am using atm dust face masks but there is too much dust accumulating and the vacuum cleaner attached to the sander is not doing it well.
Any recommendations on what works and what to avoid when buying new or used?
Any pictures of your dust collectors and how they function would be much appreciated.
The sanders I use are all home made and have no dust port attachments.
Cheers

What is your budget ?

And can you post a photo of how you are attaching the vacuum to your sander.

I bought one of these for general woodwork and turning.

https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/W886

It is fantastic for larger particles when you do turning or work with hand tools. But not so great for really fine dust from sanding or machine work.

If you have a mix of larger particles and fine dust (planer), a cyclonic separator is very good.

Bottom line is that fine dust requires expensive filtration systems. There is a very good reason most dedicated shops have their dust extraction systems outside :-) They are insanely noisy.

At the bottom end the best thing I would recommend is to get sanders with decent dust extraction ports, the wider the better. Then hook those up to the most powerful vacuum you can afford. Something like a Dyson with a HEPA filter would be good. Things to consider when looking at vacuums is how easy it is to change and clean the filter - if you are sanding you will be doing that several times a day...

Budget under or around 1k, photo of attachment will be posted later today.

https://www.topmaq.co.nz/metal-wood-...actor-wwdu0950

Here are the pics sorry about the chaos

get an oil filling funnel and stick it in the vacuum tube

Thanks @ebf
I think that is a great interim solution
Could have thought of that..

If your only worried about breathing the dust in, what about something like this - https://nzsafetyblackwoods.co.nz/en/...7-each--407464

Then you can use anywhere.
There are cheaper ones than this to.

Wood dust was number 1 on the Dept of Labour hit list last year as a contributor to workplace illness. Its bad stuff and usually overlooked, particularly in the home workshop. You are doing the right thing by looking to improve the air quality in your shed at source.

For wood, the only effective filtration system is one with a pleated filter cartridge. The cloth bags do work to a limited extent, but they let the finest and most dangerous of the wood dust through. Adding a cyclone or a in-line drop bucket will help reduce the volume of dust getting to your filter.

Something like this is has all the best features, but if the budget won't go that far, just drop our the cyclone and upgrade at a later date. https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/K047

I currently use an industrial vacuum cleaner in my home workshop, but going to make a mini cyclone with a bucket in the near future

I've got one of these https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/W394 attached to a home-made cyclone. Works well, though if I was doing it again I'd just buy the commercial cyclone attachment rather than make one myself (Machinery House didn't sell the commercial version when I set this up). One tip, if you can exhaust the discharge air outside the workshop then the level of filtration is not so critical. The outlet pipe from my separator goes through the workshop window and to an external muffler - I can get a photo if you like. It separates out 99% of the dust, and I don't have to expend the extra money and effort to get that last fraction of ultra-fine particulates.

LOOK ! no dust protection at all

I wrecked a vacuum sucking from my sandblaster.
so made a dust collector. a sealed container/bucket with inlet in lid, and outlet in lid, to the vacuum, but higher, some water in the bottom. works good.

@
bully
You have a picture, by any chance?