Dust Collection on Portable Planer

[Myk Rian]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

[Mike Chalmers]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

Not so. I ran a portable planer (DeWalt) for many years with a big shop vac with 2 1/2" hose through a separator lid from Lee Valley on a 55 gallon drum for years without this ever happening. Only clogs were in the shop vac if I overfilled the drum.

Shp vac with separator on a lunch box planer works quite well. As well as a real DC? No, but quite well and cheaper. Adapter on the machine so run is the smaller hose.

[Brad Adams]

I use my Ridgid shop vac all the time with a 13" planer. Never had a problem in the last fifteen years. Sure you have to empty the shop vac once in a while. Not that big of a deal.

[Joe Hollis]

Update: Thanks to everyone for your replies. I have tried several different configurations, including positioning the 4" to 2-1/2" reducer at the planer discharge port and either connecting the 2-1/2" vacuum hose directly to the shop vacuum, or into the Lee Valley cyclone top on top of a plastic garbage can, and then into my shop vacuum (Ridgid). I kept the hoses very short in all cases. Every test resulted in the 2-1/2" hose being plugged almost immediately, and I was only taking very light cuts off a 6" wide maple board. In order to test using the 4" hose, I'd have to buy a plastic or metal barrel and the larger cyclone top L.V. sells - and I don't know for sure this will work. For now, I'm going to default to dumping the chips onto the floor until I can afford a decent dust collector, then I'll connect both the planer and the 6" Ridgid jointer I just bought.

It appears that dust collectors are something of a necessity...

Joe.

[Lee Reep]

I use Rockler's 2-1/2" to 4" adapter on my DeWalt DW735. I have a flex hose on my Laguna DC, which has Rockler's quick attach handled port that can be moved from tool to tool. I have not plumbed my basement shop yet for the DC, but the hose gets moved from jointer to planer to table saw to bandsaw with ease, and with good results.

Rockler sells a kit that has several of the power tool adapters for both 2-1/2" and 4" tools, so you can quickly move the hose. Here is the link:

http://www.rockler.com/dust-right-mu...se-starter-kit

[Curt Harms]

With a 2 1/2" hose, you take a big chance of the hose getting plugged. A planer can make a lot of large chips.

It can, but I suspect with the typical benchtop planer taking shallow cuts would both enable the 2 1/2" hose to keep up and make for a longer lived planer motor. When I first got a benchtop planer (Delta 22-540) it didn't have any sort of chip collection, just a curved cover to direct the chips. I got a section of 2 1/2" extension tube, cut a slot a little longer than the planer cover and closed one end off. Fit the slot over the chip chute and held it in place with a couple metal straps. It wasn't perfect but got 95%, certainly better than nothing. It was amazing how quick a 16 gal. vac would fill up, though.

[Phil Thien]

Update: Thanks to everyone for your replies. I have tried several different configurations, including positioning the 4" to 2-1/2" reducer at the planer discharge port and either connecting the 2-1/2" vacuum hose directly to the shop vacuum, or into the Lee Valley cyclone top on top of a plastic garbage can, and then into my shop vacuum (Ridgid). I kept the hoses very short in all cases. Every test resulted in the 2-1/2" hose being plugged almost immediately, and I was only taking very light cuts off a 6" wide maple board. In order to test using the 4" hose, I'd have to buy a plastic or metal barrel and the larger cyclone top L.V. sells - and I don't know for sure this will work. For now, I'm going to default to dumping the chips onto the floor until I can afford a decent dust collector, then I'll connect both the planer and the 6" Ridgid jointer I just bought.

It appears that dust collectors are something of a necessity...

Joe.

Which Ridgid vac (model) were you using? I think you either have a pretty weak vac, or a leak somewhere.

I've watched my 2-1/2" clear pipe (overhead) as I'm planning wider boards than you and the debris is moving very fast, there is just no time for any amount of buildup.

[Steve Collins]

What I've read about the DW735 was that the blower is so powerful that NO powered dust collector is needed. Is this correct?

[Mike Chalmers]

What I've read about the DW735 was that the blower is so powerful that NO powered dust collector is needed. Is this correct?

If no DC, where does the dust and chips go? On the floor and in the air?

[John Gustafson]

I have a 733, bought it very shortly after they came out, in when late 1990's? I fought with the chip collection / not enough room issue for quite a few years. I went with the shop vac initially and it worked OK. Just had to keep emptying chips. Used the same setup on my Jet 6" jointer. One day as I was window shopping at Woodworkers Supply I spotted a Steel City Dust Collector. I was a small universal motor driving a fan with a 4 inch port that emptied into a bag. The whole thing mounted directly on the dust hood of the planer and it was about $80. Bought one just to see if the thing would work. Supposedly 300 CFM. It actually worked well for the first 30 seconds or so till it plugged up. Problem? There was a"spider" molded into the intake to keep chunks from getting to the fan and the stringy shavings from the planer plugged up. 10 minutes with a box knife cured that. Planers don't generally spit chunks and this was not going on anything else. It actually works quite well. The bag holds about three times what the shop vac does. The only issue is noise. Both it and the planer are high revving universal motors and they howl. Ear protection is an absolute given. The bad news, seems steel city no longer makes them. I wanted to get another for the Jointer. Got a larger shop now, and a 2hp HF collector on the saw and the jointer so my largest chip generators are covered. The planer still has it's own collection system. You might look at the 1hp HF unit. It's not a lot bigger than a shop vac and might solve your problem.

[Steve Collins]

If no DC, where does the dust and chips go? On the floor and in the air?

I think I read that some people just run their hose to a garbage can.

[Garth Almgren]

I think I read that some people just run their hose to a garbage can.

Or a pillow case.

[David Ragan]

My ClearVue central vacuum can handle the DW735 taking off a 'moderate amount' of wood. Say 0.015" if I recall correctly. that would be a 6" wide board run through the 'dimensioning' speed (faster). That would be a pretty thick cut for me on that machine.

However, if the airflow is not optimum, the chips begin to fly out the front, just a little, but it is noticeable.

Just be aware, that more woodworkers have chronic lung disease than you would think. all that microscopic dust gets into your lungs and 'can' trigger all kinds of immune responses that go way beyond just the particulate issue.

As has been said, see about this important issue. Bill Pentz is one source of information on it.

[Tom M King]

My judge of a planer DC having enough suction is when a chip that gets slung out the front hovers in the air for a split second, and gets sucked back in, and away.

[Belton Garvin]

I am one of those that directs it straight to the garbage can. I have about a 18" piece of 4" hose that dangles off the dust port into a 35 gal can. You still get dust and shavings in the air but not to bad (I wear a dust mask) if the can gets more than 2/3 full it creates quite a storm of shavings. I had it connected to my dust collector but it filled up after a couple days...and my dust collector is hard to get to to empty. I have a cyclone style trash can that I want to put in before the DC but haven't got there yet.