Dust Collection

FYI The regular Dust Deputy retails under 50 bucks.

Yep, and it’s made out of plastic, so it will have the same problem the cheap clones do - the wood chips eventually wear through it and it’s worthless.

Well, that blows!

No ! wait - it sucks …

thx

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for $50, how long is ‘eventually’, just replace it at that point.

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Must be a different type of plastic, I’m 5 yrs on and no signs of wear.

The cheap knock-offs don’t work as well either. I did a great deal of research before I bought one and was prepared to spend more. I did my own testing when I got mine, the deputy separates almost all the dust, even the ultra fine stuff. I’m not an Oneida rep or associated with them in anyway, I just believe in supporting a well made product that works. Besides having a Maslow I build archery bows, I grind a lot of wood, wood/epoxy, fiberglass and carbon, I can’t have that stuff in my lungs. YMMV

This is not me, but is one of the videos I came across doing research.

The small dust deputy does work well, I use it for everything from chimney cleaning to extra dusty shop cleanups to maslowing. However it’s high priced (occasionally a good sale, mine was $30 some years ago) and reportedly fragile and easily destroyed by falling over so it doesn’t get used as much as it could. Too small for anything bigger than a shop vac.

Check out Bill Pentz’s dust collection pages for more than you may want to know about DC

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I ended up with the system similar to the one on the left, the Vortex. Should I want to switch to a dust deputy kind of arrangement I left enough height. A quick and dirty stand I am going to attempt to cut this over the weekend.

Have not yet added the reliefs for the can to come out so if you think I can’t get the can out right now…you are right!

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I’ve been using the Rockler ‘cyclone’ style collector attached to an older ShopVac with both ShopVac bags and the tubular filter. It’s loud as heck and gets pretty warm during extended use. I’m guessing it’ll die pretty soon, but it does a good job with dust collection.

The only issue I run into is all the dust that collects inside the work-piece. I’m guessing that’s just due to not enough suction on the part of the vac.

Google the keyword Thien dust separator, or Thien baffle. Or see www.jpthien.com/cy.htm
Highly efficient, easy to make. I have one on a 7 gallon HDPE bucket.

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Yep, I made one years ago. These peices I bought from rockler can easily have the baffle plate added to be a Thien style separator.

Personally, I think a lot of these ideas are way too much dust collection for the maslow. I have a full wood shop and have used a thein baffle as well as a SDD XL. These are really more for seperating fine dust from much larger tools. On the maslow by far the easiest and cheapest way to collect dust is go buy any shop vac, use shop vac bags so that all the dust doesn’t go directly into the shop vac filter and then buy a HEPA filter for your shop vac to protect your lungs. If you’re set on a dust deputy, the mini dust deputy does work great but costs about what a shop vac would cost by itself. Keep it simple, cheap shop vac, shop vac bag, HEPA filter and go on cutting, the maslow doesn’t need any more than that.

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My cheap and simple dust collector. Probably not as efficient as the highly engineered ones, but it reduces the sawdust in my vacuum enormously, so I’m satisfied.




Edit: Ignore the “Clean Water” marking on the lid. That’s from a previous use for this bucket.

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I bought one off the shelf - socked at home Depot A class stores, $40 - I wanted a system based on 5 gallon buckets so if I start filling it in say 30 min, I can just stack another under it after cutting off the bottom. Quick capacity upgrade.

Thank you

Interestingly enough I have been experiementing with my setup. The shop vac is loud and like you I though just the router should not need so much suction. I used a router control to lower the rpm on the shop vac which brought down the noise. What I found out was at anything less than full rpm I had a pile of sawdust on the floor at the bottom of the maslow and sawdust left in the bottom of the cut. At full speed almost nothing. Maybe this info will be helpful to others.

I wonder if it’s possible to modify a bucket head vac (reasonably possible, enough time and money and you can modify anything) into a vacuum source for a small cyclonic separator?

You can get ones that both suck and blow, suggests a loop system where the same air, minus dust and chips, circulates continuously to make it even more effective

Doesn’t surprise me. On my first cut my reasonably powerful vacuum still couldn’t pull enough flow (through the vacuum attachment supplied with the router) to overcome the cooling flow the router pumps into the cutting chamber.

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Not a bad Idea, I don’t know how practicle it is though. I have a bucket head and they generate a fraction of the suction a full size shop vac does. I only use it for tasks in places it is inconvenient to take the shop vac.

I gave up on my 6.5HP Rigid shop vac for any dust collection this year. Although it does a great job, it runs at over 90db, which is quite loud. I got this on amazon (SHOP FOX W1727 1 HP Dust Collector) and could not be happier. After a couple day burn in, this thing purrs around 25db. I thought about building out my own like others have done, but the price seemed like a good value. It pulls 800cfm, compared to most shop vacs ~150. The thing that really sold me after the fact though, is power consumption. My shop is my garage: a single 20amp circuit. I’ve tripped that breaker more times than I can count when running the vac and another high amp tool like a router or miter saw. Haven’t tripped it once since making the switch. The vac is 6 times more power to run, to do a worse job, and make more noise.

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Shop Fox is professional grade tools, they make good stuff.

Shop vac is high suction/high static pressure low volume (think sucking nails up a tube), dust collector is low suction/low static pressure high volume. If you reduce that 4" (or larger) hose on the DC you really cut down on the flow rate because the smaller tube has a lot more resistance to flow.

Figure one horsepower is 750 watts, the shop vac at 6.5hp (just before it melts and self destructs, that’s marketing) would draw a lot more power than the 1hp DC.

Not saying don’t use what works, just that they’re different beasts. Just compare impeller sizes.