Overarm dust and sawstop

[Kenneth Walton]

Hi guys, I just got a sawstop professional to replace my crappy Dewalt job site saw. One of the big reasons for doing so was to stop being coated with sawdust after every rip. I'd rather not be breathing dust all day as well.

I didn't get an overarm dust collection yet. My toss up is between the sawstop built in, and an excalibur model overarm dust guard. The sawstop seems easy enough to set up and use, but I was cutting dadoes yesterday and it would be nice to have that dust collected too.

Does the excalibur work well for dadoes / tenons (using a dado stack)? Which would you choose?

[Ben Martin]

I would assume you are talking about non through cuts? I think that any over arm dust collection its going to have a very hard time picking that up as the "shroud" is on top of the board when the dado/rabbet is completed. Throwing the material forward.

Ben

[Kenneth Walton]

Yes, for non through cuts. If it's the case that an overarm won't help much, maybe I'll just stick with the sawstop dust guard then.

[Ben Martin]

Yes, for non through cuts. If it's the case that an overarm won't help much, maybe I'll just stick with the sawstop dust guard then.

I have seen a lot of people use a door sweep material around the bottom of their Over Arm guard, perhaps that will get you somewhere!

Will the Sawstop even work on a non-through cut? I thought that there's was supported from behind, like a typical splitter held guard.

I ended up building my own for a lot cheaper than I could buy one. I really like it, only have to remove it when tenoning long parts as it would interfere with the guard. Having a dedicated shop has its' benefits...



Ben

[Peter Aeschliman]

I have the sawstop dust collection guard.

For non-through cuts, obviously you can't use it. I haven't used an overhead guard, but I also can't imagine it would work that well for non-through cuts. The good news is that most of the dust goes below the table anyway. Dust only blows out at the very end of the cut.

That said, I'm not thrilled with the SS guard. It works awesome when you're making a cut where the workpiece protrudes completely on both sides of the cut... in other words, when the waste piece is around 1" wide or wider. Otherwise, the offcut sits inside the blade guard, which is lifted off of the table. So tons of dust spews out of the side of the blade guard. If you're making a trim cut, forget about it. It seems like nearly all of the dust escapes.

So if I could do it over again today, knowing that SS charges extra for their blade guard now, I would've used that money for an overarm guard instead. The overarm guards do seem a little finicky and require adjustment for each cut depth, but they're probably safer (can be used for non-through cuts).

[Matt Mackinnon]

I don't have a SS so I can't say what it is like inside. I do have a Grizzly Sliding tablesaw and it had a 4" dust connector on the outside, but that goes down to a 3" hose inside connected to the blade shroud. I have a Clearvue Max with an 8" main trunk line out. And 1400+cfm connected to a 3" flex tube doesn't achieve much. When I used my saw it spit out gobs of chips and debris everywhere.

My solution what to cannibalize the inside of my saw and remove the restrictions. I cut a new 6" port on the outside and with strategic placement of magnets covered up most of the openings in the case. Now I find that my cuts spit out very little and my Excalibur overhead blade guard captures what the bottom doesn't get.

I would look inside the cabinet and see if there it any restrictions that cause the inside DC not to work.

[Adrian Anguiano]

For a non through cut the best thing to do is use your dado insert, and not one that is a zero clearance dado insert, and make sure you have good suction inside the saw cabinet. Plug up any holes under saw table and body, and make a magnetic wooden cover to go over the gaps where you crank the saw up and down, and tilt.

[glenn bradley]

I used to have a larger overarm guard and it worked well. I now have the SawStop and it works well. The small hose and 'T' attachment point to the lower cabinet port don't bring much power to the overarm. The design is good and it picks up a surprising amount with little suction. The nature of my work means the guard comes off and goes on more than many folks might experience. This fact led me to leave the standard hose and connection point as the "off and on" takes just moments and anything I contrived took away from that. If I was one to leave things in place 90% of the time I would modify.

[Philip Rodriquez]

I have an Excalibur on my ICS SawStop. Non-through cuts will negate any DC, from above, period.

[joseph f merz]

i have the saw stop over arm -yeah it works .but i am not impressed .given a choice now i would of gotten something different .