100% router table/top dust collection with shopvac

[Tom King]

In setting up several router table tops for a sash job, I came up with this setup.  I have a cast iron wing on the table saw but it looses a lot of sawdust (router dust), and this setup is inside an almost finished house.

 

The top is a piece of synthetic bowling alley lane.  It's solid laminated phenolic, 3/8" thick.  I drilled it to replace the router sub base.  Router is a 7539.  Once I had the sub base on it, I installed a 1/2" straight bit and plunged it up through the bowling alley lane flooring.  I enlarged the hole ever so slightly, so it wouldn't squeak while the router runs.  Then I installed one of the bits.

 

The cutting head for the bit is now above the table, with only the 1/2" bit shank coming through the table.

 

For the first setup, I only needed to run 5 or 6 feet of material for fence pieces and other tooling, so the fence was just quickly thrown together. 

 

The dust collection top has a Shop Vac small nozzle glued into a hole at an angle.  Once the construction adhesive set, it was cut off flush underneath.  For the air intake, a simple hole would have done the job, but with just a hole, sawdust gets thrown out.  The intake hole has a riser of PVC pipe glued into it's hole.  That way, any thrown about sawdust can't make it all the way to the top of the riser, and it all gets sucked back down. Both the intake and pickup holes are above the cutting edges of the bit, and the fence is just a pine board with a hole cut larger than the bit for air flow.  With nothing more than a shop vac, it gets absolutely every bit of sawdust, until right at the very end of a run a tiny bit comes out.

 

Since I just had a few pieces to run with this first setup, there are no hold down feather board fingers, but the dust cap plywood fits to the thousandth of the height of the pieces run.

 

The pieces of wood are made from air dried boxwood.  The new Whiteside bit machined it prettier than any router finished surface I've ever seen.

 

Article to follow later, after this job is finished.  36 replacement window saw for a 1784 house, built with no detail spared to match the originals exactly, including all mortises (every joint) and tenons.

[Tom King]

I've made a couple more of these lately.  Here are some more pictures. These are for a one time setup with many pieces to run.  The 7518 has a good enough adjustment system to set cut to within a thousandth of an inch by running a few pieces of scrap and measuring.

 

The bowling alley flooring is only a hair thicker than 3/8", so even with the cutter above the table, with the collet close to the underside, there is not too much sticking out from the collet.  The cutter is thicker than the finished pieces, so it gets an indentation cut freehanded with another router and straight bit.  The phenolic top is plenty strong enough even with only a thin piece left at the bottom of the cutout for the bit.  Zero dust gets under the table.

 

The fence is run through the same planer as the parts at the end of the same run, so it comes out to the exact thickness.  No feather board needed. I like doing it this way better than using a feather board.  I get no noticeable machining marks like this.  I believe a lot of times, scallops from cutters are enhanced by vibrations from the cutter to the feather board fingers.

 

The dust cap has Formica laminated to the underside.  The pickup is a small end Shop Vac nozzle glued in with PowerGrab construction adhesive, and cut off flush after sitting over a weekend. 

 

The air inlet has its own hole over the hole in the fence surrounding the cutter just as the pickup nozzle does.  The air inlet needs the PVC riser because if it was simply a hole, chips would get slung out.  Notice on the floor around the sawhorses that there is no sawdust.

 

We rig it up to a more comfortable height once we get ready to run all the pieces.  Kind of funny to have the fake woodgrain on the top.

 

There's a cast iron wing on the tablesaw in the background with a router lift.  I like doing these better than using that.  Dust collection this way is 100%, and this allows using the exact thickness fence much easier with just a few c-clamps.  Not pretty, but results are what I'm after.

 

A 7518 has plenty of power to make all these cuts in one pass.