Festool CTM 26 E - I smell wood when using it

[Vinnie81]

Hi,

I'm not sure if this is a problem, it might be. I bought my Festool vac a month ago and I have it attached to a mitre saw and a router. I have been working with MDF. The vac works really well, and it seems like there is a lot of dust getting sucked up. For example, working with my 1010 REBQ router, there's almost no dust. So far so good.

There is no visible dust exiting the vac afaik. The bag is properly placed and I estimate max 30% full. The vac is not damaged, everything is in place.

I haven't done any wood working in my shop for days, and now when I turn on the Festool I smell the wood dust. Is this a problem? I mean, if I can smell it, there's particles exiting the vac that give that smell, right? Is it very fine dust? And is that normal? Should I be worried about it?

Thank you, these might be noob questions.

Vincent

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I have never smelled anything coming from mine, nor have I ever seen anything coming from the exhaust.

As an unrelated side note, there is nothing to indicate that the bag is full, when it gets there. The CT26 is so powerful that it will actually fill the bag and start filling the hose! yet it still keeps sucking. I literally stuffed mine so full that I had to run a stick through the hose to clear it, after changing the bag.

 

[Coen]

Aromatics can be gasses. Those won't be kept in by the CTL.

Also, filtration is usually never 100%.

MDF is in large parts glue. When routing it, it will smell no matter what.

 

[Frank-Jan]

I had this after I made a fence and a carport with gate out of Angelim Vermelho wood. This sawdust (and the wood itself) rieks of vomit.
When I used my vac on a later project, inside,  the smell kept coming from the vac, even after changing the bags. I got rid of it by sucking up a whole pack of those scented sticks to get rid of vaccuum odours.

If the smell is of pine or cedar, I would just enjoy it.

 

[peter halle]

The bags and filters do not filter smells.  I certainly have this happen with my two.

Peter

 

[woodbutcherbower]

One of my favourite customer requests is for me to build them something way huge in kiln-dried European oak. Enormous driveway gates, big double entrance doors, an order for 8-10 sash windows, a big kitchen with 2" thick solid timber countertops, a double kingsize bed, you get the idea.

The smell of that wood as it's being cut, planed, routed, shaped and sanded is just the best thing ever. If the technology existed to somehow get rid of that smell - I'd bypass it and turn it off.

What [member=8955]Coen[/member] says about MDF is correct though - it's a man-made material containing all sorts of resins and binders, and you'll never get rid of the smell of those additives no matter what you do. Almost all of the available scientific evidence agrees, however, that as long as all the airborne dust is removed (HEPA filtration does this effectively), the residual smell coming from these doesn't pose any significant risk to health.