Do you use dust collection when cutting green wood on your band saw?

[Dan Forman]

I was talking with Hayes yesterday, and he said he didn't use his dust collector when cutting green wood on his band saw, for fear of gumming up the filter of his cyclone with wet sawdust. I have always used DC on the band saw, but not at the lathe when turning green. Just wondering what others think about this, what do you do? Thanks,

Dan

[Randy Red Bemont]

I run the dust collector whenever I cut or turn any wood.

Red

[William Bachtel]

I do not use DC for this operation, on the lathe or band saw, but you could use the DC either way.

[Reed Gray]

Well, as far as wet dust plugging up the filter, it ain't gonna happen. Only the finest dry dust goes into the filter. I do keep it on, especially when I use my big bandsaw for prepping blanks because I cut them standing up/ripping long grain, and the hair balls will plug up every thing in about a minute.

robo hippy

[Roger Chandler]

I do use the DC for collecting dust whenever processing blanks...whether green or dried. Some build up still occurs on the blade when cutting green blanks, but the dust collector does not seem to be a problem. I generally do not cut more than a dozen blanks at one time.....storage space is a real problem for me.

Cutting a log section end grain to end grain produces long stringy shavings that can close off the dust port on the saw after a bit because of the cross casting in the port, so necessary to open the saw cabinet, and unclog the port, but no problems so far on my 1200 cfm dust collector with the cyclone lid/trashcan separator set up I use.

[Fred Belknap]

I have a Grizzly band saw with a brake and if I let the saw dust build up very much in the saw it will mess with the micro switch on the brake and it won't run. I now always run the DC when I cut anything green or dry.

[Dan Forman]

Thanks to all for your replies.

Dan

[John K Jordan]

I was talking with Hayes yesterday, and he said he didn't use his dust collector when cutting green wood on his band saw, for fear of gumming up the filter of his cyclone with wet sawdust. I have always used DC on the band saw, but not at the lathe when turning green. Just wondering what others think about this, what do you do?

I always use the DC when sawing. Clogging up the filters has not been an issue, perhaps because of the reason someone mentioned - only extremely small quantities of the finest dust ever makes it to the filters. (I use a 5-hp cyclone) I don't understand how wet or dry would make any difference there. In fact, I wonder how wet the that tiny bit of nearly invisible dust will be after traveling down 40 ft of duct.

JKJ

[Dan Forman]

I always use the DC when sawing. Clogging up the filters has not been an issue, perhaps because of the reason someone mentioned - only extremely small quantities of the finest dust ever makes it to the filters. (I use a 5-hp cyclone) I don't understand how wet or dry would make any difference there. In fact, I wonder how wet the that tiny bit of nearly invisible dust will be after traveling down 40 ft of duct.

JKJ

I too wondered if it would dry en route to the filter, or if wet, would be heavy enough to fall out in the cyclone. It seems that green wood dust tends to be more coarse as well.

Dan

[Steve Schlumpf]

I have an old Jet 650 DC that uses bags both as a collector and also as a filter. Green wood will cake inside the bag and and quickly cut down on air flow. The caked filter bag was a royal pain to clean - so have stopped using it on green wood - especially on the lathe.

[Brian Kent]

When I cut green Fern Pine, I open up the saw pretty often. The fibers get caught on the bars on the opening to the dust port inside the saw. I remove these and there is no other problem.

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

I always use it when running the band saw but only during sanding on the lathe. I've never had a problem with wet wood caking on the dust bag. I guess I'm just lucky.

[Jamie Straw]

I don't have a cyclone, but a Jet with a canister filter on top -- pre-Vortex Cone of the current models I think. I do not use DC when cutting green wood. I did for a little while, and noticed the filter was stained. Main concern, since I cut quite a bit of spalted maple, was that it might start mold growing in/on the filter.