Craig’s Crafts

Here’s a couple of pictures of the final version. Basically it’s just a box, measured and cut to fit directly behind the blade. The left side, looking from the front, extends about 4″ down past the frame of the saw. A single plastic knob and bolt with a piece of wood beneath the knob that clamps against the extension to hold it in place. I cut two “flaps” to help guide the sawdust toward the intake port.The white strip is a piece of 1/4″ hardboard pin-nailed (no glue) right through the aluminum flaps to hold them in place. The left side flap is hard to see, as it’s much narrower than the right one. Blue painter’s tape was used to cover the edges of both flaps, so I wouldn’t get cut if I bumped against it. I bored a 4″ hole to attach a short adapter (See It’s just a 15 minute job) that my dust collector connects to via a quick-connect adapter.

Most of the dust is sent straight back by the blade and very little comes out of the port on top of the blade housing, which is aimed straight back at the 4″ intake. With this and my Portable Air Cleaner made from Box Fan going, I’m in Fat City.

So I started to build my dust collector for my radial-arm saw (RAS), and began to get together the materials to build it. This shouldn’t take long, after all, it was just a small box with a hole cut in it. The wood was no problem, and I had plenty of 4″ hose to make the short connector, and then I pulled out the 4″ OD plastic pipe I had found last summer laying beside the road. It had been set aside for just this type of project, and after trueing up the end, I cut off a 5″ section to become the adapter end that my Jet dust collector (DC) needs.

That’s when I found out I had rescued a 4.5″ pipe.

No problem, I’ll just cut a slice out of the pipe, squeeze it together, and with the help of some HVAC tape and a couple of hose clamps, I’ve got my 4″ connector.

I did a few high school Geometry calculations, and figured out the circumference of a 4″ pipe should be 12.5″. All I had to do was mark off 12.5″ around the 4.5″ pipe, remove the excess, and when pressed together, I’ve got a 4″ pipe.

Ever try to roll a piece of slick plastic pipe across your workbench and not have it slip? I solved the measuring problem by borrowing my wife’s measuring tape from her sewing basket (it really was a basket!), and using that to mark my cuts.

Since I had always intended to make short connector adapters for all my tools that could be hooked up to the Jet DC, I cut three more slices from the pipe, marked them up and then used my bandsaw to remove the required slices.

Then I got out the tape, cut a 8″ section and tried bending the pipe into the smaller circumference. This is a three, or better yet, a four handed job. That pipe didn’t want to bend to my will, to I decided to weaken it. As you can see in the photos, I went back to the bandsaw and made a series of shallow cuts. This isn’t quite as effective on plastic as it is on wood, but it did make it easier to bend. I could apply about 1/2 the tape, leaving the waxed paper on the rest, squeeze the pipe into shape, and then pull the rest of the waxed paper off with my teeth as I rolled the pipe against my workbench to press the tape down. It took a couple of tries at first, but ultimately I got them all done.

Then I cut the flexible 4″ pipe to about 2′ lengths, made their connections to the PVC pipe adapters, and then I began to make the wooden box for the RAS. By then it was past 7PM, so I called it a day.

Here is a couple of shots of the reduced diameter adapters:

This guy did a great job, but to build it you need a furnace fan.

D-I-Y Shop Air Cleaner

Before I started on the Radial-arm Saw Dust Collector, I decided I needed to do something about cleaning up my shop’s air.
On of my woodworking magazines recently did a test of dust collectors, and as a basic comparison, or perhaps as a joke, they duct-taped a high-effencency furnace filter to a box fan and included it as part of the testing. I have a dust collector that I can connect to all of my big dust generators, but I didn’t have anything to capture the airborne dust before my lungs did.

The article suggested just duct-taping a furnace filter to the fan, but I couldn’t stand the idea of un- and re-taping everytime I wanted to change the filter. So I made a frame to hold it.

It’s pretty obvious how to make the frame, so just measure your filter and make it. I took off the front and back grills and was able to use screws to attach the frame from the back (neatness counts) and then reattached the rear grill. I cut a notch for the cord, but at some point I’m going to replace the short 5′ cord it came with with a longer one to make it more portable.

In use I just place the fan on a table or bench next to the saw, and turn it on high. I let it run for 30-60 minutes after I quit work just to help reduce the dust that settles out.

If you want to see the original article, it’s in the Wood Magazine, October, 2006 issue, “Air Scrubbers under $300.”