Typical woodworking processes, like routing MDF, create a large amount of fine and unhealthy dust.
Many of you who read the how-to sections of this magazine do so because you have a passion, not only for enjoying great car audio, but because you like to get your hands dirty creating great car audio. Some of you are hobbyists working in your (or your parents') garage/carport, while others are installation professionals thumbing through to check out the latest and greatest installation techniques. I was hooked by the car audio bug over 17 years ago and, like most of you, started tinkering in my parents' garage. I was lucky enough to con my dad into letting me borrow some money to buy power tools and supplies so I could create audio systems for my friends. I still remember the one thing that bothered him the most: the layer of MDF dust that covered the entire garage and driveway after I was done working on a project. Every time he would complain about the dust, I used to just shrug my shoulders and think, "What can I do?"
When I was in charge of the installation facility at Alpine, I was so busy and excited building demo vehicles that I didn't put much thought into dust collection (although I was often completely covered in dust), until one of my installation/fabrication mentors, Mark Fukuda, came by for a visit and said, "Y'all need some dust collection in here!" When he explained that he had installed a dust-collection system in his facility that evacuated over 90 percent of the dust in his woodshop, I realized that I didn't have to spend my days looking like Pig-Pen from the Peanuts cartoon strip.
We incorporated a Biesmeyer Blade Guard system with dust-collection port to aid with dust collection for our table saw.
Many installers and store owners have the same view on dust collection as I did. They see it as an option and believe having MDF, fiberglass and body-filler dust flying around the shop is unavoidable. After Fukada's visit, I tried researching dust collection, but much of the information available at the library, bookstore and on the Internet was obsolete or inaccurate. I decided to hire a professional company to install a large industrial dust-collection system (outside the building) at Alpine that cost over $20,000. Once you are used to working in a woodshop with good dust collection, it's hard working without it. After leaving Alpine, I spent countless hours experimenting and trying to create affordable dust-collection contraptions that were average at best until I came across Bill Pentz's dust collection website (billpentz.com/woodworking/cyclone) several years ago. It contains a wealth of honest information on small shop fine dust collection that can't be found anywhere else.
Dust collection is very important, whether you're a do-it-yourselfer or a professional installer, not only because of the safety and health benefits, but because it allows for a clean and efficient work environment. Installers who spend time and money to keep up with the latest installation techniques and tools should also invest in ways to work smarter, like improving the shop layout or dust collection, because they are both equally important to increasing efficiency and making a profit. While dust collection may not seem like much of a way to increase efficiency, it allows the unpleasant aspects of custom fabrication (grinding fiberglass, sanding body fillers and primers, routing MDF) to be much more tolerable processes that are less likely to be put off.
This is not a "before" picture! This shot was taken immediately after rabbeting the opposite side of the same disc with the dust collection turned on.
The very fine dust created with these processes is very unhealthy and prolonged exposure can cause many respiratory illnesses down the road. The dust also seems to travel everywhere, even in shops that employ some form of dust collection, which makes most shop owners unhappy. Wearing a dust mask to protect your respiratory health is one way to deal with the health side of the dust issue, but still leaves much to be desired in comfort and the overall appearance of the shop because a large amount of dust is tracked from the woodshop to other parts of the store.
Capturing the dust at the source is one of the most important steps in fighting a dusty shop. In order to do this, the ducting that carries the dust from the machine to the dust collector must be the proper size. Although 4" round pipe/hose is the most common industry ducting size for dust collection, Pentz's research has shown that 4" pipe is too restrictive to maintain the proper airflow (700 to 800ft3/minute) needed to capture fine dust at the larger dust-creating machines like the table saw, miter saw and inverted router. Following Pentz's suggestions, I upgraded our shop's ducting to 6" PVC pipe, with large radius bends at the corners (instead of 90-degree elbows), which resulted in a dramatic increase in suction at the source because the cross sectional area of 6" ducting is over twice that of 4" duct. The resistance to air movement of smaller diameter ducting is the same reason you would use 6" pipe rather than 4" pipe to port a large subwoofer.
The dust collection system from Clear Vue Cyclones is designed for mounting to a wall.
While I was happy to see that the 6" ducting was doing a great job of capturing dust from our table saw and inverted router station, I still noticed that a considerable amount of dust was still covering all areas of the woodshop. As it turns out, most commercially available dust collectors (with cloth filter bags) actually act as a "dust pump," sucking dust from the source, then pumping the finest dust back out through the filter bags. Cloth filter bags are not a good idea for situations in which the dust collector is in the same room where the dust is being collected, which is usually the case with car audio shops. They are very porous in relation to the size of the fine MDF dust particles that we create and pass a large amount of the smallest and unhealthiest dust back into the air. The only point in time when the cloth filters start to filter some fine dust is when they start clogging up, which impedes airflow and restricts suction at the machine. Some commercial dust collectors have incorporated 0.5-micron filters into their designs, but run into the problem of clogging up even more quickly than the cloth filters.
The solution to the catch-22 of regular single-stage dust collectors is to incorporate a "cyclone" system that spins the coarser dust and debris into a container before reaching the filters. Unfortunately, most cyclone designs that are marketed towards consumers as "wood dust cyclones" are not effective for separating fine MDF dust and quickly clog up the filters, which is why Pentz's research in cyclone design is so important to us. Pentz's unique cyclone design separates over 95 percent of the dust and debris before it reaches the filters, leaving less than 5 percent of the dust up to the filters. This allows the filters to work effectively for a long time before they need cleaning. Pieces of debris are spun and dropped into the dust bin, never making contact with the impeller (fan) blades, which is an added safety bonus of cyclone separation.
"As it turns out, most com-mercially available dust collectors (with cloth filter bags) actually act as a 'dust pump,' sucking dust from the source, then pumping the finest dust back out through the filter bags."
Thanks to Pentz's hard work and research, an affordable solution is now available to help combat the dust problem that plagues car audio woodshops across the country. Clear Vue Cyclones (www.clearvuecyclones.com) is a company that builds dust collection cyclones that are to Pentz's specifications using a durable 1/8" clear PETG plastic. Believe it or not, theirs is not a solution just for people with businesses; check out the price on their website. You'll see it's even affordable for a dedicated do-it-yourselfer. They also have a great video clip in their "Videos" section that demonstrates the principle of cyclone separation. I have been very happy with the long-term performance of our unit since purchasing and installing it well over a year ago. Many of our industry's top fabricators have visited our shop and have been impressed by performance of the system. My favorite aspect of the system is that emptying the dust bin is as simple as throwing out a trash bag (full of dust) and replacing it with a new bag, which is a nearly dust-free process. This is in contrast to the messy job of "shaking" the dust out of the cloth filter bags into a trash can, then dumping the dust into a trash dumpster which usually sends clouds of dust into the shop and the air.
Since a dust-collection system only works when it's on, I upgraded our system so that it turns on and off automatically when the blast gate is opened and closed at each machine. This makes it much less of a hassle to turn the system on and off with each operation. Other upgrades like our dust collection table, table saw blade guard with dust collection and router table dust port have made working in the woodshop incredibly dust free, efficient and comfortable. When I look back on my early days of woodworking and remember the time when I used to think, "What can you do about all this dust?" I no longer have to shrug my shoulders. Now I know that the answer is: "A lot."