Startrite 352 Dust Collection

[Trevanion]

As some know, I've been sort of half working on rebuilding a Startrite 352 bandsaw, and a right dog of one at that but that's a story for another time. Whilst I'm working on it, I'm thinking about how best to incorporate dust collection into the machine as these typically did not come with any facility to do so. Back when these were sold the regulations at the time only mandated that machines should be connected to extraction when it was used for more than 8 hours per week, so I suspect most did not bother spending the additional money on the dust chute that was an optional extra, I've never seen one for sale with the OEM chute fitted.

I see Yorkleen actually manufactures and sells an aftermarket version of the Startrite chute for around £120+VAT: https://www.yorkleen.co.uk/product/dust-chute/

However, I'm thinking that maybe a better idea would be to cut into the side of the bottom door and inlet a piece of 100mm steel pipe and weld it in at around 45-degrees relative to the blade, with some kind of closely fitting deflectors of sorts each side of the blade to direct dust toward the pipe rather than down into the cabinet. I think having the extraction drawing much nearer the production of the dust right under the blade guides will be much more efficient than having a hopper chute at the bottom of the machine that only captures the heavier and settled fine dust. Of course, even with the deflectors and outlet at the top of the machine, you will still have some dust escape to the bottom of the wheel so in an ideal world you should have the hopper chute fitted as well, but I'm less fussed about a small amount of dust build-up underneath the machine



Red indicates the extraction outlet, blue the blade, and the green the deflectors.



I'm interested to hear if anyone has any opinions or if anyone has tackled this problem themselves as I know there are at least a couple of 352 owners here.

 

[Dr.Al]

Might be worth watching Mr Maskery's video on this: his technique works brilliantly.

[youtubessl]sAEr8oZfJYA[/youtubessl]

 

[Doug]

I’ve had a bandsaw in the past that had the arrangement you’re suggesting Dan & it worked quite well, if you could include two small brushes one either side of the blade as it enters the new enclosure to disturb the dust in the gullets I think you’d be onto a real winner.

 

[Lons]

I made up a chute out of scrap plastic sheet, closed cell pvc as I happened to have some and plenty of gaffa tape involved. It was certainly an inprovement but I'd been considering giving Steve's solution a try as it looks very good. It will be interesting to see how yours works.

 

[Cabinetman]

352 owner but I’m not going to be able to help, sorry, it doesn’t get much use and the sawdust just accumulates in the ply box in the base. I think I’ve only emptied it a couple of times in 10 years.
I originally had a corrugated foil type hose bent to suck under and behind the guides and even with my 3 phase extraction going only to this it wasn’t worth turning it on.
Best of luck Ian

 

[Trevanion]

That's the only issue with my design and where Steve's works well is that it's right at the area where the dust is generated, where mine will be 100mm or so below that so there's quite a bit of space between the dust generation and the outlet where there's no suction happening. With the Startrite 352, you do have the adjustable guard in the drop-down door that can be adjusted to be butting up against the underside of the table casting, I suppose with that adjusted all the way up and the area where the suction is being sealed up more you may generate a small amount of suction near where the generation is happening, but nowhere near the amount you would have with a dedicated HVLP system as Steve's, which I would like to avoid because I don't like running them where possible.

One problem on reflection with my design is if a piece should ever fall through the table and land on the deflectors it could possibly wedge between the blade and deflectors and cause it to either go bang or bog down the saw. Although, I suppose this is no worse than if the piece wedged between the wheel and blade. The table on this saw is actually in reasonable condition, unlike many others where the casting has been very chewed by twisted blades so you won't have very large pieces falling down anyway.

An alternative idea I had was to install a square box section in the bandsaw that had been split in half with hinges so that it could open and close to install blades, with a 100mm round port welded onto one half at the bottom. The square section would be cut closely around the wheel and up to the guides so it essentially created a ducting within the saw and all dust that was propelled downward would go straight into the extraction pipe.