# Dust collector quieting



## Keith C (Jan 23, 2012)

The wife said she can't stand the smell of saw dust. She doesn't want me to cut wood in the basement anymore. Our kitchen and dining room are just above the shop. I figure it is time to put some remediation in place. A dust collector is an obvious solution, but my table saw is a small craftsman that doesn't have a dust port. I made a collector at the bottom out of wood bu there are a lot of gaps so scrapped that idea a while back. Maybe should revisit or get a table saw that is built for dust collection. Another thing I can do is put some sheet rock or paneling or something on the ceiling (open joists) to prevent any dust floating up through the old floors.

My original question is what part of the dust collector makes the most noise? I'm assuming it is the impeller/vac and wondered if using a 2 stage system and boxing in, hard foam insulation possibly, the impeller assembly would be feasible. Now, consider that I don't do a lot of work or long term, I don't see heating being an issue. I don't think I'd ever have the thing on for very long except possibly for routing. I could make something that would allow me to open it for long term use to prevent heating, and just accept the noise issue when wife isn't around or I must use router.

Thoughts?


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## comp56 (Mar 30, 2017)

I know my 1700 CFM 2 stage dust collector is way quieter than a 6.5hp shop vac


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## Herb Stoops (Aug 28, 2012)

On the noise insulation the Rockwool bats that Lowes sells as sound insulation are better than rigid insulation. so if you enclose the dust collector in a closet type box, you could use the sound batts and then cover them with HF moving blankets cut them and staple them over the sound insulation. It will do wonders for sound. 

As far as the craftsman contractors saw , make a box under it and put a DC port in it to attach to the DC. I made a sliding panel of plywood cutout for the motor mount and belt for my old craftsman to enclose the bulk of the big holes in the back and you can leave all the holes and slots open around and under the saw for make up air to get in for the DC. It will suck way more air than those openings and that will help pick up stray sawdust that falls around the saw.
Hope this helps.
Herb


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## Cherryville Chuck (Sep 28, 2010)

I don't know if it's possible to even get most of the dust from a TS. As much is probably above the table as below. The previous suggestions for sound deadening are good but to make sure that none goes into the rest of the house I would run the basement at negative relative pressure, sucking replacement air from the upstairs and exhausting air to the outside to keep the basement at negative pressure relative to the rest of the house. That should keep all the dust going out and not up and might also help with the noise levels (unless you happen to be outside near the exhaust).


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Hi Herb,

As you know I've spent a lot of effort on DC stuff. My small shop has really altered for the better after installing a Wynn 1 micron drum filter on the HF 2hp unit. This thing really pulls a lot of air and almost nothing in the way of particles gets away. The other thing that has helped is the installation of a WEN filter, the cleans out the fine, airborne particles that never make it to the DC. It is pretty cheap on Amazon.

The rest of the stray sawdust is from the top of machines, And that takes hoods and individual DC solutions. I recently bought an over arm DC for the table saw, but haven't had time or energy to put it in place. I have a good 10 inch saw with excellent below table dust collection. DC already exists on most of my other tools. Some are better than others. 

I contained the messiest tool, the sliding miter, by hanging a clear shower curtain around the back side of it. By pulling the blade through the piece toward me, a chute is created that when I push back to complete the cut, throws nearly all the sawdust back into the curtain. The curtain is gathered at the bottom into a box with a DC fixture on the bottom. But it's that pull-push move that really does the job, not so much the suction.

Add a chip collector to your DC unit. Lots of good designs out there. Pick one.

One thing I think you'll have to address is carrying the sawdust up on your clothes and shoes. If momma don't like it, it's time to make some changes. Here's what I'd do:

Get a dust collection fixture that makes it easy to vaccum up the floor every time you do some work down there. My DC has a 4 inch tube (rockler with a wide spout) to pick dust up off the floor. Don't let it sit there, it will find its way up

Install the WEN (now $118) https://www.amazon.com/WEN-3410-3-S...TF8&qid=1492735301&sr=8-2&keywords=WEN+filter

Find a way to brush off your shoes. Try this, but mount it on a box into which you can plug your DC hose. https://www.amazon.com/Boot-Cleaner...1492735463&sr=8-4&keywords=shoe+cleaner+brush

Along with brushing off your shoes, find a vacuum attachment that will let you vacuum off your shirt and trousers. Do this very thoroughly or momma won't like it. If you have sawdust in your hair, you can vacuum that off too, but don't go after your ears. Sawdust in your hair gets on momma's pillows.

Consider getting a full coverage apron to catch as much sawdust as possible. Close up the pockets. Vacuum it after use. Denim Woodturner's Apron | Rockler Woodworking and Hardware

If you can manage it, find a way to lay down some linoleum or paint the floor to make cleanup easier.

Clear away everything from the floor, up the wall 16 inches to make cleanup easier to do.

I'm sure you could do a lot more, but these fixes really worked well for me, and didn't cost that much. The Wynn canister filter was the big item, the WEN unit wasn't bad, the shower curtain and hanging hardware was maybe $25. I already had the long 4 inch hose and fixtures. A small price to pay for peace at home.


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## sunnybob (Apr 3, 2015)

If youre not running any dust collection you are SERIOUSLY damaging your health. You only get one set of lungs, and you should search the disease COPD to give you an idea of what youre heading for by breathing in sawdust. If your wife can actually smell sawdust in the kitchen, then not only is she breathing it as well, but its settling in all your food. Its the dust thats too small to see that is the real problem.

You can run a flexible hose across the workshop roof and have a drop down hood over the saw blade, and you can block up all the holes in the base if you dont buy a new saw.
This is the way to make the dust extraction noise level acceptable.






I run mine in a similar cabinet to this and the noise has dropped from an ear piercing scream to a low whine that can not be heard when any other machine is running. I also run it for quite long periods and have never had an over heating issue, even when I can hear it start to work harder when the filter inside gets blocked.


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## hawkeye10 (Jul 28, 2015)

DesertRatTom said:


> Hi Herb,
> 
> As you know I've spent a lot of effort on DC stuff. My small shop has really altered for the better after installing a Wynn 1 micron drum filter on the HF 2hp unit. This thing really pulls a lot of air and almost nothing in the way of particles gets away. The other thing that has helped is the installation of a WEN filter, the cleans out the fine, airborne particles that never make it to the DC. It is pretty cheap on Amazon.
> 
> ...


Wow Tom that is a great post on dust collection with a lot of information. Can you post a picture of your miter saw dust collection? I would be interested in seeing what you did. Here is what I did but I am always looking for better. I use both a shop vac and a big dust collector.


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## difalkner (Jan 3, 2012)

She doesn't like the _*smell *_of dust or doesn't like the _*physical *_dust period? 

What woods are you cutting? If it's the smell she doesn't like then make things with Walnut - she'll love the smell of that!! :wink:

David


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## chessnut2 (Sep 15, 2011)

Very impressive Bob. A video is worth a thousand words. Thanks.


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

@hawkeye10 Thanks, I am a throat cancer survivor and take the carcinogenic threat of some sawdust seriously, let alone COPD. 

The pictures show how the curtain is hung. What isn't visible is that the back edge of the table top has a piece of curtain plastic attached so almost all sawdust shoots back and falls into the gathered pocket at the bottom where the DC attaches. But in fact, the attached DC isn't really necessary to contain the majority of sawdust, it is the pull-push cut that does the trick. The second picture shows the way I hung the curtain, using an upside down metal bracket to mount the 1 inch dowel. Since these pictures I've added a top sheet of plastic that overhangs the saw slightly that has helped catch rising particles. The suction at the bottom isn't really enough to pull all the sawdust off the curtain, I have to tap it lightly to make it fall down into the DC fitting. When taping, use the silver duct tape.  It really holds well on the plastic.

I generally have to pull the saw out 4-6 inches from the wall to have the workpiece clear the other machines that surround it. At that point, the curtain is all the way up to the edge of the workpiece. The width of the curtain is actually wider than the table by several inches on each side, so there's nowhere for the sawdust to go than into the curtain. I live in the desert so it's always dry, and there is a bit of static cling that holds most of the really light sawdust on the curtain until I tap it.

Not shown is the WEN unit, which is close by the curtain so the circulation pulls the fine stuff up and through the filters. Hang the WEN or other brand filter near the wall so it creates a circular air flow around the shop. If it runs for 2 hours, the shop air will pass through the filters a dozen or more times.



One other thing, I have a clip on the wall where the DC hose and spout hangs. To make shop bench DC work, I hang a small hose above the bench and run it over to the spout. The small hose has a 4 inch fitting that drops into the spout and I have suction.


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## Jidis (Aug 22, 2015)

sunnybob said:


> I run mine in a similar cabinet to this and the noise has dropped from an ear piercing scream to a low whine that can not be heard when any other machine is running.


I coincidentally built a Shop-Vac cabinet back in the pre-youtube days that looked just like the one in that video, only it hinged open from the top and was 3/4" particleboard. Same result as yours. I was pulling dust off a guitar body while a friend was routing it and he was shocked. He said he thought it was off, then the dust just started flying into the hose. Sadly, when I upgraded to one of the newer yellow and black ones, the stock unit was nowhere near as irritating and wasn't worth the hassle and space of another box.

Take Care


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

Keith; please keep in mind that the dust collector requires a large volume of moving air to work properly. In the case of the TS, that means you can't totally seal up the underside of the collection box. It needs the moving air to carry the dust away.
In the case of the dust collector, the opposite but similar situation applies. You must let the exhaust port have as little back pressure as possible. Closing the machine up inside a cabinet is like trying to blow up an already full balloon.
A large vent from the cabinet to the building exterior, or back into the shop would work. By large I mean considerably bigger then the inlet size; _no_ restriction to the airflow would be the ideal (but that ain't gonna happen).


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## sunnybob (Apr 3, 2015)

Dan, the cabinet can not be completely sealed. it would not work.
the secret is to reduce the sound, all sound is carried by air waves. You have to slow the air down enough to stop the sound.
On the video you can see the baffles built in to the cabinet. this reduces air speed without increasing friction (heat). My cabinet stands on top of the baffle box, so the air is venting out underneath the enclosure. But that exit vent is 2 foot across x 6" high, and all that comes out is a gentle breeze.

Something else that is frequently overlooked is heat issues. There are NONE. Instead of thinking about that enclosed cabinet. think of the whole system the fan motor is pulling air from the room. That air will always be cooler than the cabinet. All the time the motor is running its got a constant supply of fresh air at room temp.
I have run mine for extended periods and never had the slightest hint of over heating. In fact the air temp coming out of the cabinet vent is barely higher than the room temp. Just as well considering my workshop is well over 30 c (95F and above) for over 6 months of the year.
to sum it up, there is NO down side to enclosing the noisy extractor.


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Noise. thinking about this for awhile. Whistles produce noise by blowing air across the edge of an opening. So every joint in the system is likely to produce turbulence that is a source of noise. I guess you could try to smooth out the interior of those joints, but what PITA project. 

Maybe a better option might be to wrap all the joints in some noise suppressing material. I recall that in cars, they used a gooey sheet of soft rubber against the metal of the firewall and wheel wells that suppressed noise. I have no idea what that material is called, bur surely someone recalls and knows where to get it. 

On my HF unit, I would first wrapp the impeller housing and all the attachment points to it. I'd also wrap the metal parts where the air spins and sawdust drops out, and the attachment points there too.

Have not experimented with this because I don't know what the gooey stuff is called, but I'm hoping one of you folks know, then I'll try it.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

"Dan, the cabinet can not be completely sealed. it would not work."
-Bob
Yes; isn't that what I said?


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## sunnybob (Apr 3, 2015)

Dan, sorry, that remark was not aimed at you as such, just a response to the thread.

Tom, there is a small risk completely wrapping the system in foam. Yes it cancels the noise, but you would need to earth the pipework in several places to stop a spark igniting the dust. This is a risk anyway, but with the piping all wrapped up, a fire could start in there anmd you would not be aware of it untill it melted its way out and burnt the place down.


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

sunnybob said:


> Dan, sorry, that remark was not aimed at you as such, just a response to the thread.
> 
> Tom, there is a small risk completely wrapping the system in foam. Yes it cancels the noise, but you would need to earth the pipework in several places to stop a spark igniting the dust. This is a risk anyway, but with the piping all wrapped up, a fire could start in there anmd you would not be aware of it untill it melted its way out and burnt the place down.


Running a ground wire solves that, but I wasn't suggesting wrapping the whole system, just key points, such as the impeller housing and the ports in and out of that. A chip collector also seems to help reduce noise as well. I was hoping someone could give a name to that gooey stuff used in cars for noise suppression, about half an inch thick, it would be easy to cut to shape to fit the impeller housing, which is where most of the noise originates in my system. I also keep several pair of "ear muffs" around since my hearing is already pretty iffy. Too many rock concerts in my past.


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## kklowell (Dec 26, 2014)

I remember that product well, but unless it was called "sound deadening mat" I can't remember its name. At any rate, here's a modern alternative https://www.amazon.com/Noico-Insulation-Self-adhesive-Deadening-Automotive/dp/B00URV8MFC


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

kklowell said:


> I remember that product well, but unless it was called "sound deadening mat" I can't remember its name. At any rate, here's a modern alternative https://www.amazon.com/Noico-Insulation-Self-adhesive-Deadening-Automotive/dp/B00URV8MFC


 @kklowell I think I found the original product. Adhesive, thick, Dynamat 11103 Dynaliner 32" x 54" x 1/2" Thick Self-Adhesive Sound Deadener 

https://www.amazon.com/Dynamat-1110...=1494448075&sr=8-1&keywords=Dynamat+DynaLiner


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