I have a question and hopefully an answer from a expert. I have a Craftsman 10” radial arm saw. It is an older model and works great, cuts very accurate and I have only one complaint. “Dust control”. It is the only tool I have left that doesn’t have a serious dust control set up on it. I have tried several things to control dust that this thing produces. I have had the who back covered with a box, didn’t work, I have under the table dust collection, didn’t work, I have attempted to put a moveable side panel on the housing, didn’t work. I use a 2HP shop vac on the front discharge hose and have even tried a 10 shop vac with reducers, didn’t work. My next attempt is to fill the shroud/Blade guard with spray foam the have an open space at the top that is hooked to my shop vac. What are your thoughts, has somebody all ready invented this wheel?
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Replies
The man or woman who really solves this problem will get rich. The exact same problem exists on miter saws which are really just smaller versions of radial arm saws, and it is a real draw back to their use.
If you look at how the mechanics work, the sawdust is being sprayed forward, slightly upward, and in a widening fan from where the blade exits the wood. Because the head moves, and there is a fence in the way, it is very hard to fashion a dust pickup that grabs the dust just where the blade exits the wood. Larger fixed hoods set up behind the fence will catch some of the dust if they have a very large airflow but I haven't yet seen one that gets anywhere near all of it, and the most dangerous finest dust is left hanging in the air.
By far the best dust collectors are engineered into the machine as part of the blade shroud assembly, but it is hard to design a shop made shroud for an older machine that doesn't also interfere with the saw's operation.
I believe that you asked this question in the Knots area. I'm sure that you will get a lot of responses, and it is worth doing a search through past discussions, but at best you will probably only catch 75% of the dust no matter how hard you try.
Good luck, John W.
Edited 3/25/2008 12:56 pm ET by JohnWW
Edited 3/28/2008 10:29 am ET by JohnWW
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