What dust collectors are really for

In germany they are called "Spanabsaugung", which translates rather to 'chip collector'...

Can you point us to some recognized organization, reference material, printed articles or other material that supports your claim? Ohhhhh...but you did say you wouldn't respond so you don't have to back up any of that bullshit you posted... If it's anal to ask you to cite your sources - then so be it.

Bob S.

He does not need to cite *sources*. I have had 28 years of making a living at furniture building to know that he is right. It amazes me at the marketing crap hobbyist woodworkers sometimes fall for. BTW our "dust collector" is 100 HP.

Well LP It sounds as if you are angry about all this and looking for an argument. Well truth be known I agree with you 1000% But then again I am a pro and I fling and get covered in sawdust and chips and everything else all day long. Yes it is a dirty business, before leaving the shop i use an airhose to blow off with that just gets the heavy crap off me before i go home and hit the showers. When we get the pollution out of the air we breath coming from all the petro chemical emmisions pumped into the air then i will start worrying about what the wood is going to do to me. Geez LP what are you so angry about, Lighten up enjoy life, George

So do I.

Barry

It keeps the biggest of the crap off the floor and puts it somewhere I can handle it better.

It keeps the cutter head clear on the planer, molder and shaper and this helps out a lot.

Never thought of it as a health related item.

So far as I know, it's the really small s*it that's gonna kill you, and dust collectors don't do anything about that.

Regards, Tom Thomas J. Watson-Cabinetmaker Gulph Mills, Pennsylvania 19428

Howdy,

My dust collector traps loads of dust...

But the stuff it traps (which includes what I would certainly call "dust" in addition to larger stuff) is not the small stuff that is really dangerous. For that, a respirator is essential IMO.

All the best,

I have a 1 micron semi-truck filter on the discharge,works good, I guess it all comes down to what you want to spend for your health. Dave

All wooddorkers should cultivate nose hairs ... twas nature's way of protecting the hunter from those dusty tracks. Hmmmm ... maybe that's a trick the hair transplant industry is missing? At least we'd all have something so's you could tell us on sight.

they can do it if setup right.

depends on the machine. a bag system yes. a good cyclone with a .3 micron filter will keep that fine dust out of the air.

that's why you want a fine micron filter it lets more air pass.

You can't get everything true. but with some effort you can get almost all of it. it takes a great setup and sometimes machine modification. but I now have very little sawdust (the really fine stuff) getting loose in my shop. it took a lot of work and some money but my cyclone does a fantastic job.

want to see the fine dust my system collects? sawdust so fine it floats like a cloud of smoke that tropicals make. as far as i can tell no sawdust gets past my filter.s very little gets past the dc intake on each machine. I would like that part to be a bit better but it is the hardest part to accomplish. I don't want to wear a mask all day long.

if you want to see what that dust looks like it is about time I cleaned my filters (G) it is like a powder in the air it is like smoke. I had the cap come off my filter the other day and it was like a smoke cloud. padouk makes way too much of the nasty dust. my setup works better then the respirator did.

That, as I understand things, is the very dangerous stuff...

All the best,

And it's difficult to understand how some professionals can think that breathing 28 years of sawdust hasn't taken its toll on your health.

Bob S.

Do nose hairs help with that? My nose hairs have really started to run amok in the last few years, and I have a forest of black curly hair poking out of my schnoz.

Does a perpetually clogged up, boogery nose help? At least some of the dust is getting lodged somewhere other than my lungs.

You have a beard, don't you? Or am I thinking of someone else?

Respirators don't work worth a damn for me.

What the hell do you think they're there for?

That's not bad grooming, just good woodworking.

You know what's on the inside of a clean nose, right?

..... Fingerprints

I'll tell SWMBO to return my nose hair trimmer thingie then. :)

Damn straight, but don't tell my boy that. He's trying really hard to live down his nickname. Use your imagination.

Exactly, all this crap about dust so small we can't even see it. It's just like the scare tactics we hear about cigarette smoke - causes cancer, yeah right. I worked with a guy that smoked at least 1-2 packs a day for over 40 years with no problem. Since it didn't kill him that's proof it's all just bullshit made up by the nicotine patch/gum people. Another example is there were a lot of guys working in dirty/dusty coal mines that never got black lung disease so that was another fictitious story.

Just keep breathing that dust and I'm pretty sure you won't have any problem. You're proof that it can't be a health problem since it hasn't caused you any harm.

Being relatively new to this avocation, I was beginning to think I had to go out and drop $1000 to keep the dust down, when all I really wanted to do was not have to spend 30 minutes every day sweeping the floor. It nice to hear an opposing point of view to recent posts. As for me, I just open doors at both ends of the gar...shop, turn on a big ass fan, hook the tools up to a shop vac and set it outside, downwind. I'm betting I'm more likely to buy the farm from the cigarettes I smoke, the fatty foods I eat, the alcohol I drink, the alcohol the guy coming the other way just drank, the extra pounds I carry, or from making a mistake in the small airplanes I like to fly.