Dust Extractor for Benchtop Bandsaw

[upscale]

Hi. I'm seriously thinking about purchasing the Rikon 10-305 benchtop bandsaw. My 'workshop' is limited to the workbench I have in my apartment living room. Naturally, dust is an issue. So, a dust extractor is a necessity.

Question, would the mini mobile dust extractor produce enough suction to work reasonably well with this bandsaw? I intend to be cutting 3/4" material, resawing isn't something I see in the foreseeable future. Opinions? Thanks.

 

[Midnight Man]

I've always believed that for larger equipment (that is, stuff that isn't hand-held like a router, domino, sander etc) you should look at a high volume low pressure extractor, which is the exact opposite of a Festool CT dust extractor (which is a high pressure, low volume extractor, otherwise effectively called a vacuum cleaner).

This isn't meant to disparage the Festool CT extractor in any way, it's a brilliant bit of kit that works excellently for extracting from the sorts of tools Festool make.

I don't think it's suited for a bandsaw/table saw/planer etc, where you shoul dbe looking to plug in 4" extraction pipes into the port on the machine.

 

[lwoirhaye]

I've used a shop vac on a band saw.  The ones I've had with the larger hoses seemed to suck a lot harder than the Festool dust extractor I had.  The shop vac worked okay but still the cabinet of the saw gets dust spread around inside.  You can get a lot of the airborne dust so you aren't coughing though.  I use a dust collector on my band saw now, but the saw still gets full of fine dust that needs to be vacuumed out.  The best setups run a hose to a port right under the table and another hose to the bottom of the lower wheel. 

 

[bwehman]

I have that Rikon (love it btw) and use a CT-26 with Dust Deputy and it works great. Prior to that I used a CT-Mini and prior to that a Ridgid shop vac. All were super effective with that Rikon.

 

[ChuckM]

I have three lines of defence for my bandsaw:

- A Ridgid shop vac (something like this:https://www.homedepot.com/p/RIDGID-6-Gal-3-5-Peak-HP-Wet-Dry-Vac-WD0670/205144661) connected to the 4" port (with an adaptor)

- An under-the-table chute, also connected to the shop vac
(Someone has posted this before and I think it is the best design -)

- A filtered box fan on the outfeed end (similar to this:https://www.woodlogger.com/simple-dust-collector/)

You will still find some fine dust on the saw table but not like the dust mess you normally see in a bandsawing operation. I would estimate my set-up to be at least 95%+ efficient.

The only problem with this set up is the noise from the Ridgid shop vac. I am designing a box to house the shop vac to reduce its noise (along this line or so:).

 

[Steven Owen]

1 HP Dust extractor with 600 CFM will work.  It can be adapted for 2 inch connectors with an adaptor on the end.  They’re cheap and effective dust collectors for a small shop.  It’s 10x better than using a 150 CFM ShopVac or Festool extractor on large equipment.
https://www.busybeetools.com/products/dust-collector-portable-1hp-csa-craftex-ct126.html

 

[Michael Kellough]

It mostly depends on the band saw. Some are designed to help make dust collection effective and some are not.

A BS designed for dust collection could be used with an ordinary vacuum cleaner if the material being cut is thin. Re-sawing will produce stringy stuff that will clog the hose and fill the bag. Replace the ordinary hose with a larger diameter and place a dust deputy before the vac and it should work well.

If dust collection was an afterthought in the design of the BS then a high volume dust collector and a large hose will be better.