Dust is dangerous. Get rid of it.

Wood dust was recently declared a known carcinogen by the US health authorities. Anyone that has done any amount of wood working will have already worked out that clouds of dust are not particularly fun to have clogging ones nose, throat and lungs.

It is time to deal with this hazard as best we can and that means a serious dust collection system - not merely a chip collector device but a real system which provides enough airflow at a proper velocity to actually deal with the sub-micron sized particles that are the real health threat. For a really detailed explanation of this issues involved and a very opinionated analysis of dust removal techniques you should visit Bill Pentz's site. Please consider making a small paypal donation to help him keep it running.

I decided to buy a 2hp commercial model cyclone from Oneida Air Systems because of their reputation for quality and service. I can certainly say their device is very well made of very solid materials and despite being quite quiet it most definitely sucks. Hard.

I bought my cyclone from Welbeck SawMill in Durham Ontario since I live on Vancouver Island BC and they were the only online dealer I could find in Canada. This saved me having to worry about shipping such a large item, in several parts, across the US border. It took a few calls to get the order done, a fax of my shop plans to allow them to make recommendations about the ducting and a couple of weeks to get everything generally sorted. The stack of large boxes arrived just after lunch on the day they told me to expect it, which was pretty good going since I live in a very rural part of the island where the sun is often an hour or two late.

The following pictures are a short photo essay on the installation process in my garage.