RAS dust chute

I meant to save a link for a chute. Someone posted a link where they made a chute with a curved back that seemed to work well. I just got 4 pieces of 3/8" plywood. I made the sides about 14-16" tall. I put a top on it and punched a hole in the back. It keeps the dust under control with a bonus hose attached to the dust port on the blade guard.

I don't know about the "outstanding" but here's some pics of mine. The top and sides are 1/2 Birch ply; the bottom and back is 20 gauge sheet metal.

tradeoff that anyone building such a chute needs to consider. From the [lack of] kerf marks on your table, it looks like you use your RAS strictly as a cutoff saw, with no miters of bevels (or rips for that matter, but that is not relevant to design of a dust chute. So yours extends fairly far forward, effectively shrouding the blade during the beginning of the cut. But if you were to do a bevel cut, it would be poorly aligned to pick up any dust (if I am understanding your design correctly).

The other approach is represented by the store-bought dust pickup I have and not real happy with. It is flared to pick up dust from a larger area, and the mouth of it sits even with the column. It picks up a lot, but a lot is missed, too. Its advantage is that it can be swiveled about the column, keeping it aligned with the blade during bevel cuts.

One improvement I have seen on a guard for strictly cutoff work (and I think this was in Charlesworth's Furniture Making Techniques book, although I can't put my hands on it right now) is a telescoping dust chute, with a shroud around the blade that slides into a chute like the one you have built, keeping dust collection as close to the cut as possible, even as the blade is moved through the wood.

Here are a couple of ideas:

I did something a little different. I will try to post pictures this weekend.

Dave