shop vac for dust extraction?

I have my table and miter saw plumbed so that I just move my shop vac hose to either one. Is there a good shop vac recommended for this sort of dual use as dust extraction and shop vac?

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Reply to
noxpurt
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While it's better than nothing, a shop vac really doesn't move enough air to be effective at dust extraction.

Look for something with a 2" hose or bigger. If you can get a HEPA filter for it, so much the better.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Friesen

Actually, I've used a couple for a few years now, with 2+" hose coupled to Hitachi tablesaw or smaller hose to router-table. Sometimes two connected to router-table. Works great. On occasion with router-table, I've managed to fill nominal 12-gal bucket on ShopVac in an hour and change, besides.

Not much dust escapes, and extreme little gets throuth Gore-Tex filter. Never seen a HEPA filter for one. Note that most "dust collectors" don't do well with multi-micron-size dust particles, much worse than Gore-Tex.

J
Reply to
barry

extraction and shop vac?

I don't know if there's one that would be any better than others in the "homeowner class" shopvacs (If you can afford to pay $$$ for a Fein or Festool, do it - quiet and great quality from what I've heard). I currently use a Ridgid 9gal shopvac with HEPA filter for dust collection, and it's pretty good - not as good as a dedicated dust collector, but a heckuva lot better than nothing. I use it for my plunge router, router table, 10" bandsaw, ROS, and general cleanup. The HEPA filter makes a big difference - definitely look for that. If I were buying it again, I'd probably get the 12 gallon one - it's supposed to be quieter (the 9gal has quite a whine, even with the "muffler"). Capacity isn't a problem with the 9 gal - the filter usually gets caked with dust before the tank fills up with chips/shavings. I might also look for one that can take bags - emptying an extremely dusty tank can be very messy, and it seems like a bag would extend filter life also. I don't think any of the Ridgids take bags. Hope this helps, Andy

Reply to
Andy

When I had my old Ryobi BT-3000 (the saw everybody loves to hate), I just plugged my shop vac into it and it collected 99% of the dust. The secret is that the blade was closely shrouded underneath the table.

Now I've got a Unisaw and a "real" dust collector, and I have dust all over the place. What a mess. I did 100 times better with the old setup.

Reply to
Roy Smith

At least some of the GoreTex filters are HEPA filters.

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Reply to
Chris Friesen

A Shop-vac is fine for a router or a saw, so long as your shrouding is efficient enough that you're not wasting airflow. It's only the thicknesser that really needs those 4" hoses.

A Shop-vac also has higher air velocity than a 4" chip collector, unless you have multi-hp power behind it, so it's better for working a simple small-scale dust cyclone.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

I've got a shopvac, and while it does pretty well at the router table, I won't say that it gets absolutely everything.

On the saw it gets most of the stuff under the table, but there's still a lot of stuff coming off the top of the blade, even with a guard on it.

A really good dust collection system will collect all the fine dust as well as the chips, so that your lungs are protected and you don't need to wear a respirator. This level of airflow is almost impossible with

4" ducts on a standard dust collector--they just don't have the velocity when using such narrow ducts. On a table saw you really want upper and lower dust collection, so a 4" hose for each is about right.

Someday I'll get a proper cyclone. Until then I wear a respirator.

Chris

Reply to
Chris Friesen

Wear that respirator then, too. No dust collection system is absolutely perfect. You don't want your lungs to catch any of the leftovers.

Reply to
Art Greenberg

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