# Turning and dust/chip collection



## Jim Beam (Oct 10, 2012)

Has anyone been successful at collecting chips and dust while turning? I would love to see some pictures of what you have tried. I have an idea to cut a 3- or 5-gallon bucket and lid in half vertically and connecting a 4" hose to it. Use it as kind of a collection hood, laid on its side.

Your pictures? Suggestions?


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## 9thousandfeet (Dec 28, 2014)

I've had almost no success at extracting shavings, especially those long spaghetti-like ones you get with green wood. 
I suppose if one has a bazillion horsepower vacuum extractor and maybe a 12" vacuum line the shavings might just go bye-bye, but then so would some tools and the shop cat. 

Dust is easier. I made a hood from real heavy-duty cardboard and that chrome-looking duct tape thinking it would last a while until I made something more permanent. That was 6 years ago when I set up things in my current location and it still works fine. It's not real big, maybe 12" square at most.

I have it on a length of flexible 4" hose supported by a bracket on the wall and just kinda put it where I want it when sanding. I can usually direct most of the sanding dust right into the hood by positioning the sanding disc just right.

It doesn't get it all, I don't think anything ever does, but it does get almost all.... I still wear a dust mask though, for sure.

I saw a photo once somewhere of a large wooden bowl some guy had turned into a funnel (woops!), so he stuck it on the end of a flex hose and made a dust hood out of that.
Of course, nobody around here would ever do something like that, but I thought it looked pretty cool and I'm betting it worked just fine.


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## UnisawGuy (Jul 20, 2014)

I use a hood to collect the fine dust from sanding and scraping. The chips fall to the floor and are shoveled into a wheelbarrow.


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## hwebb99 (Nov 27, 2012)

I have a chip collector that catches all of my lathe chips. It is called the shop floor.


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## saculnhoj (May 18, 2015)

I agree with the others. It's very hard to collect the shavings being thrown from the bowl. If you were using scraping tools maybe if you had a killer dust collector but even then the hose has to be right at the tool tip. 
Years ago someone made a bowl gouge out of a round tube and connected a hose to that. Clogged up too easily and still didn't collect the green wood shavings. 
I have bought a couple of different hood type accesories for my hose and they do work to collect the dust, especially sanding dust but the spinning forces of the work still put a lot of dust in the air. 
I have a 2300 cfm dust collector and you would think that would really work, and it is far better than my old Jet 1100 cfm but still, dust manages to get by it.


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## Woodychips (Oct 3, 2015)

hwebb99 said:


> I have a chip collector that catches all of my lathe chips. It is called the shop floor.


I can relate to that! When I get a really good pile and it's difficult to walk around, it's time to put it all in leaf bags. Then it's sold as horse bedding.


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## Jim Beam (Oct 10, 2012)

Holy Shiites, you are turning a metric @ssload of wood over there!


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## NCPaladin (Aug 7, 2010)

My dust collector is small, 1.5 hp IIRC and only picks up dust. Dust goes through the impeller/blade so any large chips would clog it. 
My pickup in on an arm and I can rotate it to any position; horizontal for spindle, vertical for platters, or any angle to match the curve of a bowl.


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## Jim Beam (Oct 10, 2012)

NCPaladin said:


> My dust collector is small, 1.5 hp IIRC and only picks up dust. Dust goes through the impeller/blade so any large chips would clog it.
> My pickup in on an arm and I can rotate it to any position; horizontal for spindle, vertical for platters, or any angle to match the curve of a bowl.


Now THAT is useful and gives me ideas! What did you make that cone out of?


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## NCPaladin (Aug 7, 2010)

Jim Beam said:


> Now THAT is useful and gives me ideas! What did you make that cone out of?


It is the sheet metal form that a floor register (heating & cooling) drops into, usually <$5. They are rectangular but when you snip off the outer lip it will go oval. They already have the connection for 4" built in. 
I glued on some Velcro to be able to attach the plastic extensions to.
The extensions are plastic office file folders.


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## Woodychips (Oct 3, 2015)

Jim Beam said:


> Holy Shiites, you are turning a metric @ssload of wood over there!


Yeah, you could say that. I turn full time. Those pics were from the winter time when I do all my rough turning. Tons of shavings for about 4 months.


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## Woodychips (Oct 3, 2015)

This is my dust extractor. It has a 1.5 hp motor. I have a single line that runs to the ceiling overhead my lathe. There it splits into two. I use 4" flex piping with a 5" cone on either end. Two lines run down from the ceiling to my headstock where it's easily positioned to pickup dust in front, back or both. My shop is my garage and every month I take my leaf blower and "dust".


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