Raffan demonstrates effective dust collection/extraction

[Steve Tiedman]

In this 13 minute Richard Raffan video (below), he's rescuing a previously damaged piece. But, by about the half-way point, the sun is shining in from the background, and boy does it show the dust made during the cutting process. He is not running the dust collector/extractor while cutting. Watch the clouds of dust blow about.

Then he starts the sanding process by turning on the collector. A completely different world emerges. The sun is lighting up the dust cloud coming off the wood and sandpaper, and you see how his hood system captures and contains the dust cloud, the single most important feature of effective dust collection. Do not let it escape into the atmosphere- capture, contain, and remove it at the source. This is most effective with a hood/box surrounding the 5 sides immediately behind the spinning wood. The suction flow of air comes fully from where the dust is being produced, dust is never allowed to escape the hood/box.

Any sort of shaped inlet (velocity stack, big plastic bowl, etc) simply attached to the hose/duct and supported in open air behind the spinning wood is drawing air from all directions and cannot capture and contain the dust cloud even half as effectively as the 5-sided hood/box that he has behind his lathe. And this video is providing proof of concept.

View: https://youtu.be/7dcXymZ2gUo?si=YjZss-QXg4fQMIla


Wood dust is an allergen, it is carcinogenic, it is absolutely a nuisance. Don't let it escape into the shop, don't let your lungs filter the shop air. Masks over your mouth/face/head, ambient air filtration systems, and cross-venting open windows are passive and secondary compared to a simple hood behind the lathe. Here are a few versions on the theme.
https://www.aawforum.org/community/threads/raffans-dust-hood-part-2-my-version.23338/

 

[Jamie Straw]

I first saw Raffan's dust collection box in a Tomasic video. When I got a second lathe (Harvey T-40) which stands in the middle of the shop, not on the wall, that box-on-a-shelf seemed like a good plan, and it has worked great! I find it more effective than a dust hood, and the right side slides to make the box adjust to the size of the stock on the lathe. The shelf along the back of the lathe, and the top of the box, are both handy for temporary storage. Go to 6:00 in this video to see Tomasic's set-up. Not having a wall handy meant bolting shelf supports onto the ends of the lathe. [Sorry, don't know why link doesn't work. It's Tomislav Tomasic's "Q&A is back: three common questions" video.] Here's a screenshot from Tomasic's shop:

And behind my Harvey: