7 Tips To Improve Dust Collection In Your Workshop
Dust collection can be such a beautiful thing in a busy wood shop. It can help keep your shop clean, provide healthier air for breathing, and allow you to be more productive by focusing on the project rather than cleaning. Dust collection, contrary to popular belief, is designed for the small dust particles, not the larger chips of saw dust. The small particles of dust can cause serious health issues when exposed over a large period of time. Setting up your dust collection system can be intimidating and confusing but I am going to try and help answer some common questions about dust collection and provide advice on how your dust collection system can be more efficient.
Don’t Use 90-Degree Elbows
That’s right. Even if you need to make a 90-degree turn in your collection tubing, using a 90-degree elbow will decrease performance. Instead, using two 45-degree bends is a better option. You may think that two 45-degree bends is the same as a 90-degree bend, and while your geometry calculations are correct, it isn’t quite the same in terms of dust “sucking” performance. You see, in a 90-degree bend you have a sharp corner that the airflow (and sawdust) must take. This can drastically reduce the suction of the system. Think of it as “drag” on an airplane. Whilst a 45-degree bend is a lesser angle that the air is required to flow through. So, even though the air is still traveling 90-degrees from one leg of the bend to the other, two 45-degree bends are less harsh and will provide for better efficiency in your dust collection system.
Keep Tubing As Straight As Possible
This may seem obvious, but when it comes to dust collection, straight, long runs of tubing are going to allow air suction “momentum” to build up and increase performance. Even the slightest sag or droop in your system can reduce efficiency. Consider installing some dust collection brackets on the wall or ceiling that can support the tubing and provide a straight run of pipe. When setting up your dust collector and associated tubing, try to keep the initial run of tubing (the tubing closest to the dust collector unit) as straight as possible, for as long as possible. Only add bends when absolutely necessary to reach a tool, wall corner, or avoid immobile fixtures in your shop.
Use Tape, Not Silicone - For Sealing Joints
As with any sort of tubing or pipe for any use, the joints will need to be sealed. This isn’t a must, but can certainly help increase efficiency. As each junction of pipe, whether the pipe is entering a coupling for another stick of pipe, or the pipe is entering a bend or elbow, should be sealed. Simply sticking the pipe into the coupling and getting a firm friction fit will provide for decent air flow. However, even though it may not been seen or heard, there is still going to be a small amount of inevitable air loss. Air loss in your system will not hurt the machine, but is performance loss. You would rather have every ounce of air working towards sucking up the dust from your tools, not escaping through joints. Some will say that the best option to seal pipe joints is to silicone the joints. That is certainly an option, but I don’t think it’s best. Silicone will definitely provide an air-tight seal at the joint, but is basically a permanent solution. From experience, even if you think your dust collection setup and dust tube routing is definitely permanent, it’s usually not. I personally went through roughly 4-5 iterations of how I wanted the tube routing to be before I finally found the “right way”. So, a better alternative to silicone is to simply use duct tape (or something similar). By using tape, you still achieve a rather air-tight seal, but can easily cut or remove the tape when needing to change something, without fighting with cleaning off old silicone residue on your tubing (that will probably hinder getting a tight fit on the next use).
Use PVC
You can find many products on the market that are designed to be specifically used as dust collection tubing. And honestly, they probably work the best. However, they are rather pricey and can generally only be found and purchased from woodworking stores. The more affordable alternative is using thin-wall PVC pipe. PVC is available from almost every home improvement and hardware store and is cheaper than purchasing dust collection tubing. The weight of thin-wall PVC is perfect for maneuvering and mounting on the walls and ceilings of your shop, and fittings/elbows/couples/etc. are readily available. The designated dust collection tubing does provide one feature not found in PVC…It’s usually clear. This is good for knowing if you have a clog or area that needs to be cleaned. In my experience though, it’s usually not an issue. I have only clogged my system one time, and I didn’t need clear tubing to know where the clog was.
Stay As Big As Possible For As Long As Possible
Most dust collectors will come standard with a 6-inch port for connecting tubing. However, most mid-sized hobbyist woodworking machines come standard with either a 4-inch port, or a 2.5-inch port. At some point in the run of tubing, the pipe size will obviously need to be reduced. For the sake of efficiency and overall best performance practice, I recommend keeping the runs of tubing as large as you can for as far as you can, right up to the point where a reduction in size is needed. For example, let’s say your planer has a 2.5-inch port connection and your dust collector has a 6-inch connection…I would come out of the dust collector with a 6-inch tube and run the 6-inch tube all the way to the planer, then reduce to 2.5-inch, and only have a small, short piece of 2.5-inch tubing that connects to the planer. By staying as large as possible for as long as possible, you allow more air movement in the system as a whole, providing a better chance of collecting more dust particles from the machine with your system.
Install Valves Close To The Collector
This is quite the opposite of the sizing tip I mentioned above. In your dust collection setup, you will more than likely use a single dust collector to suck dust particles from multiple (if not all) tools and machines in your shop. However, since you won’t be using all of your machines at the same time, you will want to restrict airflow to the machines not in use as much as possible, allowing as much suction as possible to the machine your using. The standard method of doing this is by installing valves or “blast gates” on the tube runs that aren’t in use. For the best performance, you will want to keep the blast gates as close to the collector as possible. It is certainly more convenient to have the gates right next to the tool so that you can just reach over and operate, but it’s not the most efficient. By having blast gates at the tool, you’re allowing the collector to attempt to suck and move air throughout the entire run of tubing right up to the point of the gate. Whereas if you still the gate close to the dust collector unit, you are immediately diverting all “air moving forces” into the designated line/tool you’re about to use, with minimal waste or air loss.
Clean Those Valves
The blast gates must be cleaned. Cleaning them isn’t a super daunting or intricate task, but is absolutely necessary for efficient operation. As you use your dust collection system, thousands of dust particles will move through the blast gate and into the collector. Over time, debris and dust particles can get stuck and build up inside the blast gates. When the build up gets big enough, the blast gate may be unable to fully open or fully close, causing air loss at that blast. Air loss at one blast, or multiple blast gates across your shop, all add up to lost efficiency when suctioning air from the tool you are trying to use.
I am certainly not an expert on dust collection, nor am I an engineer. However, these are just some tips I would give when setting up your dust collection system in order to provide you with the best chance possible to have a dust collection system that works efficiently and keeps your shop clean and healthy!