I'm setting up a shop vac/trash can cyclone poor man's DC, because I have to have something, and this is affordable, fits my space, and will hopefully be much better than nothing. I'm putting some faith in Lee Valley not to talk it up in the catalog. It really sounds like it will be quite satisfactory for my tiny shop, and all it takes is a few hoses and collection points. The trash can and shop vac already have permanent homes.
So that leads me to my point. The #1 priority is to get DC on the table saw. I don't care about the mountain of sawdust on the floor. What I want to cure, or at least severely curb, is the rooster tail blowing in my face, and the resultant airborn dust. I realize that the stuff I can see and feel isn't even my real problem.
So that brings up two issues. The first is collection itself. I have a stand-mounted benchtop saw. I've seen a few different takes on the same idea for this. Basically a sloped plywood box with the port at the bottom. That seems to me like it would get the stuff "off the floor" but it seems unlikely that the low CFM of a shop vac would be able to move enough air through such a large space to cure the rooster tail. Seems to me that I need a small enclosure that gets the port as close to the bottom of the table slot as practicable. No zero-clearance insert for this saw either (it's all but impossible to fit one, and involves reshaping the casting) so I have a pretty big gap there.
The gap strikes me as a potential problem, but I've spent many hours futzing with solutions if only for the sake of safety, and I've never come up with anything at all durable. I use my crosscut sled for thin cuts, even rips. Let's just take it for granted that it's a problem with no solution, and work around it. So, probably a bit less than 10" long, 1/4" gap on one side, 1/2" gap on the other, call it 7.5 sq. in. of air space around the blade. Given that much of a hole, is there *anything* can do in the way of rigging up a collection port that will be able to generate enough air movement to kill the rooster tail? I'm envisioning some kind of box that's just barely big enough to surround the blade, and which would prevent it from ever tilting again. (I don't need to be able to tilt it. I *do* need to make sure it continues to go up and down.) Seems such a box would be smaller than the usual tapered plywood solution, but still a rather large volume, with a rather large hole in the end. Is that just a lost cause?
The second issue is filtration. I have a HEPA filter on the shop vac now, and no visible dust blows out the exhaust. The stuff I need to worry about is invisible. How will I know if it's working? Since the thing doesn't need to be mobile, would it increase my success at protecting myself from microscopic dust if I locate the vac outside, under some kind of weatherproof lean-to, and run the hose through the wall? I would prefer to avoid having to do this if I can, because it would be a bitch to mow around, a bitch to ensure that it remains sufficiently weatherproof, and would demand some kind of remote switch. (Perhaps the latter is easy though. Ordinary wall switch, dedicated outlet on the other side of the wall... That's not unrealistic, and my shop is small enough that I can walk two steps from anywhere to anywhere. I don't really need a remote.)
So, anyway, these can't be new problems. I *have* been googling, but I would like some input from today's Wreck.
I'll also ask... Let's say this *is* hopless. I *have* to cure this dust problem sooner or later. I don't want to get emphyzema, and I already work in trailers filled with cardboard dust all day.
A cabinet saw is simply out of the question, but what about dust collection on contractor's or other benchtop type saws? Is it always a matter of rigging up some improv thing? Is there any saw built in such a fashion as to allow a reasonable chance of success with this sort of shop vac/cyclone system?
I might pop for a new table saw, max $500, with my share of the tax refund, and this might be the motivation I need to convince SWMBO that it's more important than, well, whatever else she might come up with. Putting that $500 in a real DC is another way to go too, I guess, but they're big, and I'd need more power, and anyway, I'd rather have a better table saw, because I've raised the bar as high as I can with this one, and it isn't high enough by a long shot. The only good thing about this saw is that it only cost me $50.