Holding and Positioning Your Dust Hood

[Walter Mooney]

Well I’ve finally gotten around to building and installing a dust extraction system, after far too many years without. Now I need to figure out how to hold and position my ’gulp’ dust hood behind my lathe. That’s where you come in. Please show and describe for me (and the rest of us) what you use, how it’s attached, or not attached, to your lathe, and whether or not you’ve come up with any improvements or any “if I had it to do over again, I’d ……”

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Barry Larson]

Hi Walter:
I have a 6 inch bell mouth for sanding dust collection. It is mounted on a heavy roller stand. I replaced the roller with a piece of cold rolled steel shaft. The bell mouth is set in a plywood bracket attached to two shaft collars welded in an angle iron so it can slide back and forth along the length of the shaft. The whole apparatus can be adjusted up and down and tilt back and forth. Perhaps a ball joint would have been better, but this works and the cast base is heavy enough that it is stable. The whole system seems to work pretty well, but of course it is difficult to capture the fine sanding dust at the best of times...

Cheers.
Barry W. Larson
Calgary, Alberta, Canada eh!

 

[Ron Solfest]

I mounted my 8” ‘bell’ to the headstock extension on my 3520 so it is always “approximately” where I want it.

 

[Dwayne Watt]

Woodturners Wonders sells a flexible mount for dust collection hose that clamps to the lathe bed. That may or may not be useful for you.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

I'm from farm country....... I have some baling wire wrapped around the neck of my "bugle" and then just bend the ends to the length I need to "hook" over the bed way. Infinitely adjustable and if I need it a certain way I lean it up against the banjo. I only use the dust collection when sanding so the tool rest isn't on there and I put the banjo where needed.

 

[robo hippy]

The more the piece is enclosed, the more dust you get. Look up my Sanding Hood for Bowls on You Tube. The 'big gulp' type hoods will get most of the dust, but not all of it. I have even seen a cardboard box used. I suppose a 5 gallon bucket would work too. Just depends on how fancy you want to get....

robo hippy

 

[Randy Anderson]

I use one of the plastic big gulp dust hoods mounted on a bar on the back of my lathe. The Jet has a mount for a horizontal bar for a safety cage so made it convenient to mount. It swings forward and back to accommodate the piece size and light. For bowls and most normal sized pieces it works well enough. Problem now is I'm doing much longer large hollow forms so I need something much wider and more air flow. Something like Robo's setup.

 

[Walter Mooney]

Woodturners Wonders sells a flexible mount for dust collection hose that clamps to the lathe bed. That may or may not be useful for you.

I will be looking at that on WW. Thanks Dwayne

 

[Walter Mooney]

I use one of the plastic big gulp dust hoods mounted on a bar on the back of my lathe. The Jet has a mount for a horizontal bar for a safety cage so made it convenient to mount. It swings forward and back to accommodate the piece size and light. For bowls and most normal sized pieces it works well enough. Problem now is I'm doing much longer large hollow forms so I need something much wider and more air flow. Something like Robo's setup.

My Grizzly doesn’t have anything like what the Jet and the Powermatic have, but I like the idea of mounting some sort of rod or frame that’s somehow attached to some part of my lathe. You and Ron have given me food for thought — another thing to ‘sleep on’. Thanks!

 

[Norm Marentette]

Just made one for the big gulp found on the internet. Fully adjustable and I like it so far. Tend to move headstock a lot up and down ways for turning bowls and drilling for roughing. Just used scraps from around shop.

 

[Sam Fleisher]

My Grizzly doesn’t have anything like what the Jet and the Powermatic have, but I like the idea of mounting some sort of rod or frame that’s somehow attached to some part of my lathe. You and Ron have given me food for thought — another thing to ‘sleep on’. Thanks!

What model grizzly do you have? On my g0766 I took a length of 1.5" or 2" angle iron cut off 12 inch lengths and then mounted those on the sides of the legs and then run the long length left over between them on the back side. gave me a place to mount a 4 foot power strip. Would also be useful for placing a dust hood but I'm pretty fond of my simple wire.

 

[Isaac Fisher]

I mounted a flex hose on the wall behind the lathe in a s shop-made sliding track. The sliding portion sits just below the bottom of the banjo. An assembly comprised of a 45 degree elbow and large hood is easily adjustable and removable. There is no interference on objects up to 13” diameter, and I have a second hood assembly that sits further from the spindle and allows something like a 17” diameter.

I typically only use it for sanding, but the banjo will fit under the hood if I’m turning something nasty and want to pick up the chips too.

The hood picks up practically all sanding dust and chips from hollowing, and about half of the chips from outsides and spindle work.

 

[Mark Jundanian]

Re-purposed a computer monitor stand and clamped it to a light weight saw horse. The hose is a bit heavy for articulated arm, but it works. The whole thing is easy to move and reposition.

 

[Dean Center]

I mounted a flex hose on the wall behind the lathe in a s shop-made sliding track. The sliding portion sits just below the bottom of the banjo. An assembly comprised of a 45 degree elbow and large hood is easily adjustable and removable. There is no interference on objects up to 13” diameter, and I have a second hood assembly that sits further from the spindle and allows something like a 17” diameter.
View attachment 56900

Can you explain the wood rail and slider part of your set up? Thanks.

 

[Isaac Fisher]

Can you explain the wood rail and slider part of your set up? Thanks.

The rail is three pieces glued up to make a channel. The top and bottom have grooves cut into them.



The sliding part is two pieces. One piece is rabbeted top and bottom to slide easily in the track. The fit is close, but not tight. It slides freely with one hand even with chips filling the track.



The other piece is drilled to accept a dust collection fitting. A slot cut from the side and two screws keep the fitting in place.



The hood is a loose fit in the sliding contraption, which makes it easy to swivel or remove it with one hand.

 

[Isaac Fisher]

I left a little slack in the flex hose so I can move it around or pull it off the slider to vacuum the floor around the lathe.

The way it’s set up at the moment, there’s about 3 feet of side to side movement for the dust hood, which covers 99 percent of what I do.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

I have had many configurations and what I have now uses a commercial cell phone display cantilevered arm. But I copied this one from a post on this forum some years ago. It is cantilevered and made using black threaded pipe with plumbing tees and couplings. All thread (heavy stuff) is used to make the joints. This is attached to a heavy wheeled cabinet but could be on a heavy stand also.

WWWW

 

[Adrian Wilson]

View attachment 56936
I left a little slack in the flex hose so I can move it around or pull it off the slider to vacuum the floor around the lathe.

The way it’s set up at the moment, there’s about 3 feet of side to side movement for the dust hood, which covers 99 percent of what I do.

Great idea. May borrow that.

 

[Dave Landers]

I'm using the stand that came with the big hood sold by woodcraft. But I didn't like it - always in the way, the stand had to be way too close to the lathe, and the hood didn't really seem to be doing anything to capture more dust (for me, anyway). So I "fixed" it.

A length of 3" PVC pipe gets the stand away from the lathe, and the 3" PVC coupler fits just right into the pipe on the hood stand. (Couplers for 3" PVC fit just right into the end of a 4" dust collector hose, too).
I put a pipe clamp on the stand's height adjustment so I can just rotate it out of the way. My lathe is not against a wall, so there's room for the stand, and I can just drag the stand out of the way when I need more space.
And I turned a bell mouth which seems to really help it capture more dust.
I glued a couple small rare earth magnets to the DC's remote control, and glued a metal bit on top of the PVC. So the switch is right there (but I can move it to another machine).

 

[Steve Chaplin]

8" Bell mouth, 6" connection.

 

[Neil S]

I hang the bellmouth hood from the toolrest and manoeuvre it as close to the work as I can when sanding. I watch my particle counter and if that start to go up I re-adjust the position of the bellmouth.

 

[Nathan Roper]

I bought the black hole system from craft supply because I really liked how it worked during a class. I mounted the track to metal conduit that I have running behind my lathe and its not ideal. The conduit is attached to the wall with brackets but it still will rotate I guess. The weight of the track and the rest of the set up makes it rotate down and it won't hold position very well. I have been meaning to screw the track to the wall but haven't gotten around to it. I did cut a little block to try and wedge the track from rotating down. That helps but when I slide the arm into position the block falls out and I have to wiggle around to get it back in place. I also think my dust collector is a little under powered for what I'm expecting it to do even though I've got black gates and souped the DC up a little. (Harbor Freight DC with upgraded impellor.) To be clear I still really like the black hole system, its just my implementation of it is less than ideal and I haven't spent the time to make it work better.

Ignore the bowl and look for the system on the back wall.

 

[John Hicks]

I use the woodturners wonders rail system. It works but on larger swing lathes; you'll be wacking the banjo on the flexible arms constantly. I dipped the clamp handles in liquid tool handle because they are very slippery. I plan on moving the whole system to some kind of floor mount to get it out of the way. Also, you get better cfm with a ridgid pipe most of the way, then a small piece of flexible host at the end.

 

[Karl Best]

I've had the Black Hole system for a couple of years; it's fairly adjustable, but I'm really tired of whacking the end of the banjo on the support. A week ago I moved it out of the way so the rail is mounted vertically on the back of the lathe:




I had to fiddle a bit with the rail clamps, and added a new thumb wheel. It seems to work okay, but I'd still like something more adjustable.

I've admired the system that Glenn Lucas has in his classroom, and his website has a dust extraction arm that you need to inquire about; you'll end up with a quote for 544 pounds sterling including shipping to the US, which is more than I wanted to spend.

Does anyone have a suggestion for an arm that I can mount to hang from the ceiling or wall? I see some of you are making floor stands, but I'd prefer to keep things out of the way for sweeping.

 

[Aaron Harris]

Karl-I have the exact same issue with the Black Hole on my own 3520 and the long banjo banging into it. I may try what you've done with the vertical mounted track system, though I would also like to more fully enclose my work for better dust extraction as RoboHippy suggests.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Does anyone have a suggestion for an arm that I can mount to hang from the ceiling or wall? I see some of you are making floor stands, but I'd prefer to keep things out of the way for sweeping.

You can create a swing arm with pipe flange in ceiling and iron pipe to heights needed, then a pipe tee and pipe to lathe. Then you can drill to mount or mount a wooden platform to mount the DC hardware.

 

[Chuck Engstrom]

Another approach to attachment to a 3520.... Try to buy smooth-surfaced cold-rolled rod, 3/4 inch, not the rough-surfaced hot rolled which may not fit through the hole in the headstock thing without being smoothed out.

 

[James Seyfried]

8" Bell mouth, 6" connection.

Steve do you have a source for that bell mouth?

 

[robo hippy]

I am wondering about a French Cleat system.... Should be workable if your lathe is against the wall. I do want the pieces enclosed so that ALL of the dust is collected. I would think there would be some sort of brace that expands and contracts, like XXXXX if that makes sense.

robo hippy

 

[Mike Selser]

.


Does anyone have a suggestion for an arm that I can mount to hang from the ceiling or wall? I see some of you are making floor stands, but I'd prefer to keep things out of the way for sweeping.

I modified this (https://www.rockler.com/universal-dust-collection-port) to hang from the ceiling to hold my over arm dust hood on my table saw. Mounted it with a drawer slide to get it out of my way when needed. Would do the same if I wanted overhead collection for my lathe but happy with the Woodturners Wonders rail system.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Steve do you have a source for that bell mouth?

I wondered about that too myself, and then I turned my own - connects with a 4" PVC floor flange (Toilet flange) , just had to cut a recess in back of blank for the flange to fit and screw on (and then added 5 minute epoxy after) , before screwing it in I then flipped to the front side and turned my flare (It's sort of a reverse parabolic curve) nice and smooth to the inside to just exactly match the I.D. of the PVC (Basically turning a funnel inside-out) , once assembled, sealed the seam as well with 5-minute epoxy so I got a nice, smooth flow from the rounded lip to the end of the PVC (Ripples, gaps, edges will create turbulence that reduces the air flow efficiency) I still have yet to find a source for the bellmouth (But then I stopped looking since mine works great) Might be an option if you like the challenge to turn your own... I'm sure there are others on here that also turned their own instead of buying factory made...

 

[JeffSmith]

google bellmouth inlet or bellmouth velocity stack and you’ll get hits for a variety of od’s. They’re used in engine intake applications for smooth flow of incoming air. I switched to one that fits my 4” flex duct from a rectangular intake and have been impressed with how it improved capture of sanding dust.

 

[Jonathan Silwones]

Have you ever grabbed some scraps and jury rigged a prototype of something to see if it might work? And then the damn things works so well you use it until “it comes apart “ but it never does and so you are still using it a year later?
Here is that thing.
It‘s a box that hangs from the ceiling and can swing. The yardstick is notched so it can be positioned close or out of the way. Notice it just clears the banjo so it can get really close. The black ramp shows the profile well for that perfect curve. There is a mesh screen to keep big stuff out. It holds check keys and such. This is so fast and easy to use while turning, you don’t have to stop anything to reposition Which means you will use it where it needs to be.
Changes? Something better than cardboard and tape. A note here. I built an interface to the lathe that senses when the lathe is running (turning, not just powered on) and turns the dust collector on and off. My biggest problem with dust collection was not turning the collector on! Two more pics to post.

 

[Jonathan Silwones]

Ok, four more

 

[John King]

Walter - Photo of my rig attached. Simple. Moves along lathe ways. Moves in/out perpendicular to lathe ways. - John

 

[robo hippy]

You can buy sheets of plastic, similar to the food grade barrels, up to 5 by 10 sheets, so maybe a project with friends. Generally whole sheets are cheaper than taking just what you need off of a full sheet unless your supplier has off cuts. 1/4 inch thick is pretty stiff, and not too easy to bend. 1/8 inch might be a bit flimsy. You can make a wood frame to mount the plastic in, and then suspend however you want.

robo hippy

 

[Jonathan Silwones]

You can buy sheets of plastic, similar to the food grade barrels, up to 5 by 10 sheets, so maybe a project with friends. Generally whole sheets are cheaper than taking just what you need off of a full sheet unless your supplier has off cuts. 1/4 inch thick is pretty stiff, and not too easy to bend. 1/8 inch might be a bit flimsy. You can make a wood frame to mount the plastic in, and then suspend however you want.

robo hippy

Thank you! Great idea.

 

[Mike Novak]

@Jonathan Silwones

Slick setup!

 

[Graham Dolby]

Well I’ve finally gotten around to building and installing a dust extraction system, after far too many years without. Now I need to figure out how to hold and position my ’gulp’ dust hood behind my lathe. That’s where you come in. Please show and describe for me (and the rest of us) what you use, how it’s attached, or not attached, to your lathe, and whether or not you’ve come up with any improvements or any “if I had it to do over again, I’d ……”

Thanks in advance for your help.

I have a piece of mesh from a discarded fly screen over the mouth of my dust hood to catch the sandpaper that I inevitably let slip while I'm sanding.

 

[Ron Solfest]

@Graham Dolby , I also put some 1/2” mesh over mine. It catches sandpaper well