Plugged hose in Hammer K3 Winner

[Jim Andrew]

Yesterday, went to square up a couple of panels on the Hammer tablesaw, and found sawdust building up on the front side of the blade. Tried to remove the hose from under the shroud and found the corner of a stick in the open slot at the rear of the shroud. Pulled that out, and still could not get the dust to flow, so took off the hose, and found another stick farther down in the hose. After getting the thing opened up and cleaned out, I think I could improve the situation by making a rectangle to round transition in the form of a 45 degree angle. Problem is any short thin cutoff can get caught in the hose inside the machine. Anyone else having problems with the saws with shrouds inside the cabinet? It is hard to get inside there to unplug.

[John Lankers]

I think your problem is not the dust hose inside the machine, it would be solved by installing a zero clearance insert to prevent small cutoffs from getting pulled down and lack of suction from the dust collector could be a contributor as well. I had a CF531, which has the Hammer saw body, for over 5 years and never had this happen.

[glenn bradley]

A ZCI is my first thought as well. If pieces of material (as opposed to sawdust) are getting past the blade, I would just resolve that. This is a safety concern anyway. Unfortunately, zero clearance and sliders are sometimes mutually exclusive. Pieces as thin as .5mm will probably slip by and something the size of a twinky could fall through there when the slider table is not next to the blade.

I have wondered about the actual gain in my blade shroud. My previous saws did fine (in some cases better) with the spoil just going into the cabinet bottom to be drawn out at a floor level port. Some spoil remains in the nooks and crannies but, once the snow-drifting is done, the remaining path is clear and remains clear.

[Jim Becker]

I regularly have to clean out the blade shroud on my MiniMax slider where very narrow off-cuts sometimes get swept down past the blade. I agree with the others that a ZCI would be helpful to reduce the incidence of this, but have never gotten off my duff to make one...it's a bit more work doing that for a slider and most of them have a long span, so something like phenolic is required to have the strength necessary for the job.

[Andy Giddings]

Either a ZCI or more suction - the thin offcuts that end up in my dust chute make it all the way out of the saw to the nearest vertical joint. When I remove the connector to the saw, they're easy to collect

[John Lankers]

3/8" baltic birch ply has just the right thickness to fit in the Felder, setscrews aren't even necessary for a flush fit. The support piece underneath makes the ZCI very rigid on the slider side.

[Jim Becker]

I can't do it like that with my MM, John...the "insert" is much longer because it also encompasses the area where the scoring blade is. BB wouldn't be stiff enough AFAIK. Sam Blasco recommended a phenolic material to me a few years ago, but I never acted upon it.

[Darcy Warner]

My holzher 1243 has a wood zci. Looks like some sort of really dark exotic wood.

I use lots of tropical woods, I don't recognize this stuff.

[John Lankers]

I can't do it like that with my MM, John...the "insert" is much longer because it also encompasses the area where the scoring blade is. BB wouldn't be stiff enough AFAIK. Sam Blasco recommended a phenolic material to me a few years ago, but I never acted upon it.

Jim, the insert is 550 mm long, it looks small because I have a 315 mm blade installed plus I have a 100 mm scoring blade under the insert, only I haven't used it yet with this insert. This design is very strong with the extra piece sandwiched underneath, IMO.

[John Lankers]

My holzher 1243 has a wood zci. Looks like some sort of really dark exotic wood.

I use lots of tropical woods, I don't recognize this stuff.

I have a blank insert that came with my saw that fits your description, it could be some sort of resin infused hardwood.

[Alex Snyder]

Jim - are you hooked up to dust collection? If so, what collector and run type? I ask because I'm looking to avoid this situation myself.

[Justin Ludwig]

I can't do it like that with my MM, John...the "insert" is much longer because it also encompasses the area where the scoring blade is. BB wouldn't be stiff enough AFAIK. Sam Blasco recommended a phenolic material to me a few years ago, but I never acted upon it.

I don't have a ZCI on a slider, but on my PM2000 I used BB. I had to attach a rib to the underside of it to keep it rigid and free of cupping.

[Jim Becker]

Jim - are you hooked up to dust collection? If so, what collector and run type? I ask because I'm looking to avoid this situation myself.

While I believe you were addressing the OP, I'll mention that Dust Collection is somewhat required for these tools, so yes, I'm hooked up. The cabinet port is 120mm and that transitions to a 5" drop from the 6" main to the saw body. For the overhead guard collection (which I very rarely use), it's a 3" drop to whatever the guard translates into mm. My DC system is an Oneida cyclone while has a 7" main out to where it transitions to 6" at the first branch. I run 6" all the way to the J/P and only step to 120mm at the hose.

[Jim Andrew]

Yes, I have a 3hp cyclone with 6" pipe. Reduced to 4" under the table and 2" hose above the table. System works fine when not plugged. I did make a tight fitting insert, but it has a little gap beside the riving knife, must be where it sucks the strips in. The cyclone sucks pretty hard, and it is hard to keep tiny pieces from going down any available opening. See thin strips go up the overhead hose, but they don't get caught in that hose. Hammer used a 4" hose under table, and it is a little long, with a sort of 90 in the bottom of the cabinet. Needs to be cut off so it is a straighter run.

[Rod Sheridan]

Yesterday, went to square up a couple of panels on the Hammer tablesaw, and found sawdust building up on the front side of the blade. Tried to remove the hose from under the shroud and found the corner of a stick in the open slot at the rear of the shroud. Pulled that out, and still could not get the dust to flow, so took off the hose, and found another stick farther down in the hose. After getting the thing opened up and cleaned out, I think I could improve the situation by making a rectangle to round transition in the form of a 45 degree angle. Problem is any short thin cutoff can get caught in the hose inside the machine. Anyone else having problems with the saws with shrouds inside the cabinet? It is hard to get inside there to unplug.

Hi Jim, my B3 has the same table design as yours.

You could make a slightly wider insert to close up the gap.

The other thing I've noticed is that using the rip fence in the short position really reduces this issue as the off cuts fall away from the blade..........Rod.