SawStop Overarm Dust Collection - Take 3

Like many other SawStop owners out there I really liked the idea of SawStop's Overarm Dust Collection accessory, but I didn't like the price tag as much - $200 for a little bit of hose and some pipe does seem steep. Once again, this idea was heavily inspired by Paul-Marcel's design at halfinchshy.com, though I did end up making a few changes.

I decided to use 1.5" EMT, which I picked up at my local big-box home improvement store. They had it in 10' sections, but they cut a 10' piece into 3 pieces for me - approximately 3', 2.5' and 4.5'. I also picked up 2 elbows and several compression fittings. The 3' section is on the bottom, closest to the table, and the 2.5' section is up top. The vertical portion comes from joining the elbows into a U, which you can see from the location of the compression fittings.

I really liked what Paul-Marcel did with the star knobs to be able to loosen and swing the arm down out of the way. I didn't really want to do a wooden box to hold the EMT though - I really wanted to come up with a metal bracket solution.

My first thought was to take some metal corner braces and bolt those to the rear rail, then bolt in some EMT hangers to the corner braces. That worked, and I don't think it was going to go anywhere, but the corner braces simply weren't heavy enough and the whole thing wanted to wobble around a lot.

My next step was to mount a piece of slotted angle steel (like you might use to hang a garage door track) to the rear rail using the existing bolt locations. Then I mounted the EMT hangers to that. This was much better, and actually quite stable, but it put the end of  the EMT too close to the table - when I had the hose hooked up that comes up from the dust collector it sat a little bit above the table surface. That wasn't going to work since it would interfere with cuts.

Third time is a charm... had I spent a little longer in the conduit section the first time around I might have found these the first time, but oh well. My third plan ended up using conduit beam clamps. I mounted the EMT hangers to these and they are SOLID. Not only is the whole setup nice and rigid now, but it also sits back just far enough from the rail to not get in the way of any cuts, which is of course very important.

You can see the beam clamps are quite heavy and hold the EMT in place just fine.
You can also see that I've been making cuts without dust collection at the blade guard!

 

The hose that runs from the EMT to the blade guard is a section of pool hose, just as others have used. I found it for about $9 at a local pool supply store with the ends attached already.

I did add a light (LED) to the arm as well. It is pretty well positioned for use above my router table add-on, but not as great for the table saw. I may add a boom arm before too long and suspend another fixture from that for the saw.

Now that I think I have a setup here that is going to do the job I need to make a couple small enhancements just to make things a little easier:

1) Clean up the wire for the light
2) Add some star knobs (or similar) to allow tool-less loosening of the EMT hangers for swinging the arm down out of the way.

SawStop Router Table Addition

As if I wasn't already excited enough to be getting a massive upgrade to my table saw, the SawStop installation provided me the perfect opportunity to get serious about my router setup.

For the last several years I've had a Bosch RA1171 Benchtop Router Table in my shop where my DeWalt 618 would live most of the time. This worked OK, but it did present a few problems.

• The Bosch table isn't that big, but to make it usable it really needs to be up on something. I made a semi-permanent rolling stand for it out of some 2x4s. It wasn't anything fancy, but it did get it up to a nice working height and still allowed me to move it around. The problem was that this took up a decent amount of floor space, and floor space is always at a premium in the shop.
• The Bosch table has its deficiencies. It isn't built for dust collection at all, the fence adjustment is pretty sloppy, and the fence overall just isn't big enough to accommodate a lot of work pieces safely.
• I had been toying with the idea of getting a second DW618 because taking my original one out of the router table if I needed to do some freehand work was tedious, and getting it back in was even worse.

It seemed like this was a good time to get rid of the Bosch and think about building something into the extension of the SawStop. This isn't a radical idea - you can find plenty of examples out there of people doing something similar. I found people taking two basic approaches - one, don't bother putting in the extension piece from SawStop and just install a pre-made router table between the rails. The other approach I saw people take was to use the extension piece and just cut an opening for a router plate. The problem I saw with installing an existing table was that the Bosch wasn't big enough, nor did I want to continue to mess with that fence, so I would have to buy a router table, cut it down and figure out how to suspend it between the rails. It seemed to me that it would be easier to just take the existing piece and make that my router table top.

My goal was to have the router table setup in the extension wing with a lift, dust collection at the fence and using a dust box, and with the router fence attached in some way to the table saw fence.

Since I wanted to use the saw fence as the reference point for the router fence it made sense to use that to square up the router lift - a Bench Dog Pro Lift - before making my cuts.

Here I have cut out the opening along the interior lines, but I have
not routed out the lip for the lift to sit in, so it is still above the
table surface.

The Bench Dog lift fits perfectly between the braces under the extension piece of the table. I will use those pieces later to attach my dust box.

You can see here how nicely the lift fits between the braces

The instructions on the Bench Dog web site for installing the lift in a custom table are pretty good. Basically you trace the outline of the lift top, then you copy that outline in 1/2". Cut along the interior line, then route out to the outer line to create a recess for the lift to sit in.

I used some scrap plywood with nice straight edges as guides
while I ran the router. The Bench Dog instructions describe this
process really well.

With the opening sized for the lift, I'm ready to start putting the dust box together. The router will be installed in the lift and then the whole unit will be lowered into the table, so I don't have to worry too much about the box being big enough to wrestle the router in and out. The Bench Dog lift is natively sized to accept Porter Cable's Production Routers. I decided to add the 7518 for my purposes, thereby allowing the DeWalt to become my go-to for any freehand work. The 7518 will live in the router lift.

 

 

The box itself is just scrap plywood from some previous
cabinet projects. You can see here I also added some additional
bracing where the lift rests on the lip I routed. It seemed like a
good idea to add a little extra support to that MDF, especially
now that the edge where the lift would sit was not as thick as the
rest of the top.

The lift and the router dropped in without a problem. I mounted my outlet box (previous post) to the back of the dust box, and also mounted the router power switch there.

I have a little magnetic latch as well as a window sash lock on the dust box door.
This gives me a pretty tight seal around the door.

 I'll add another entry on dust collection overall once it's done, but a major goal in this project for me was to make dust collection at the router as effective as possible, so it merits a mention here. I run a Dust Right hose to my tools as needed, so they each have the quick disconnect ports for the Dust Right Handle. I added a port to the face of the dust box (at the front of the saw) so I could hook my 4" hose up easily. That creates excellent suction within the dust box itself. I also wanted to collect dust at the fence, so I put a 2.5" port on the back of the dust box and ran a small section of hose up to the port on the fence.

The 2.5" dust port on the back of the dust box with the hose
running to the fence.

You can see the 4" port on the front of the dust box. I will add
another for the table saw dust collection once the storage under
the saw is straightened out.

 The fence isn't attached to anything yet - I've been working on a couple different ideas for how I want to make that happen. I was going to build a fence from scratch, but I went in to Rockler to get the pieces and they had their fence setup on clearance. I was able to get the 32" fence and the accessory kit - dust collection port, featherboards, etc. - for less than what I was going to get the retro-fit faces for, so I had to do it.

I'm really happy with the setup so far. It's clean, organized and
makes great use of the space. The Bench Dog lift is absolutely
amazing, and the Porter Cable 7518 is a beast. I can't wait to
start making great use of both.

 More to come on this project - stay tuned!

SawStop 3 HP PCS Unpacking/Review: Part 3 - Adjustments

With the saw actually functional and assembled the next step was to do some tests and, if necessary, some adjustments to make sure everything was as precise as possible. I also intended to use the SawStop fence to line up the cutout for my router lift in the extension wing (more to come) so it was critical that the fence be exactly where I wanted it before I got started.

The Super Bar

I picked up a Super Bar at Rockler last time I was in (which happened to be during their Brown Bag sale).

I have to say the saw was almost right on out of the box. I measured from the miter slot to the blade and to the fence, and the variation was minimal. The blade in particular was dead on. I did have to make some adjustments to the fence, and that took a little bit of fiddling to get it just where I wanted it.

On that note, when you setup the fence rails you can tell pretty quickly that they will take a little bit of adjusting to get right. There are about 8 bolts across the front rail that hold it in place, but the holes do allow for some play for fine adjustments. I found it worked best to get it close free hand, tighten them just enough to keep things in place, then take some measurements. You can move one side or the other just enough to get your measurements to change in the right direction. This takes a few times to get right, and once or twice I got the measurements where I wanted them on the table but then the fence didn't slide freely anymore.

SawStop 3 HP PCS Unpacking/Review: Part 2 - Power

The SawStop 3 HP PCS ships with a 9' power cord installed, and that power cord has a NEMA 6-15 plug on the end. I was fortunate that I already had a drop for 220 in my shop, and it happened that I had not had a need for it previously. It appears that it was originally installed for a dryer, but I don't know that it was ever used. It had a NEMA 10-30 receptacle wired up, which didn't do me much good. I opened up the box and was pleased to find that it did have 4 conductors (ground, neutral and 2 hots) to the box. So, I was going to be able to borrow the following idea from Paul-Marcel at http://www.halfinchshy.com/

The plug on the SawStop itself. I added a receptacle
this, as well as 2 110 outlets, in a 2 gang box that
mounts to the saw.

While I'm at it, I'll also borrow Paul-Marcel's disclaimer - I'm not an electrician, but I'm comfortable with the steps involved here and have worked with electrical wiring before. If you aren't comfortable doing this, don't understand a step, etc. consult a professional!

So having removed the old receptacle I was ready for a new one that would actually fit my needs. I went with the L14-30. It's a 4 conductor locking receptacle rated for 30 amps. The circuit I am working with is 30 amps, so that's a good fit.

Once the new receptacle was wired and tested I set out to put together my cord and electrical box at the saw itself. My local big box store had a 25' Rigid generator cord that seemed like it would fit the bill nicely. I checked Harbor Freight, but they weren't carrying anything close to what I needed. I went with the Rigid, which was going to be longer than necessary, but the alternative (getting a custom cut section of 4 conductor 10 gauge wire) was going to be needlessly expensive. I cut the Rigid to length - about 10 ft - and stripped back the case to expose the 4 wires inside; green, white, red and black in this case. I ran the exposed wires into a 2 gang metal box and wired up a 1 gang 110 outlet (black for the hot, white for the neutral and green for the ground) as well as a 6-15 220 outlet to match the SawStop plug (black and red for hot, green for ground).  I ended up getting some specialized push-in wire nuts that would accomodate up to 3 10 gauge wires (solid or stranded). Regular wire nuts get to be a pain to work with for that large of wire, and I wanted to make sure I had really good connections here. I had to have those nuts special-ordered, so I was forced to wait an extra day to get everything running. Once installed, everything tested out, so I plugged the saw in and fired it up. NICE.

This is the box that will mount to the saw (once the cabinet
underneath is complete). You can see the SawStop is plugged in
and the 110's are still open.

SawStop 3HP PCS Unpacking/Review: Part 1

For the first post on the Modern Classics Woodworking Blog I'll be documenting the unpacking and setup of a Sawstop 3 HP Professional Cabinet Saw.

We combined the trip to Portland with visiting some family, so we had some cargo beyond the table saw to contend with

First off, I picked my new saw up at Barbo Machinery in Portland, Oregon. Rand and the staff there were extremely helpful. If you are in the market for a piece of machinery and can make it to the Portland area, definitely check them out.

The saw was extremely well packed. The cabinet itself was in a box alone, on a pallet. The extension wing, rails, fence, and mobile base were all packed in their own individual boxes.

Unloading everything except the cabinet itself was easy. The cabinet was another story. It weighs in at close to 400 lbs. My brother-in-law and I were able to slide it most of the way out on my cargo mat, then lower it to the garage floor.

Rand at Barbo and I determined a trailer wouldn't be necessary
The saw did fit in the back of my SUV, but there was not much
room to spare

Unboxing this saw was very encouraging. It was packed very thoroughly  and the engineering and attention to detail that went in to the packaging gave me a lot of confidence right from the start. Personally, I enjoy assembly jobs like this, but it does get frustrating when you have to spend a lot of extra time sorting and locating parts, chasing down the right wrench or socket, or trying to study a picture to determine which part is which. SawStop took care of pretty much all of that. All of the hardware was conveniently packaged and labeled (color coded even) and the instructions all referred to the exact spot on the hardware packages when a piece was needed. Every time a wrench or socket was needed, the instructions specified the size. It was really a pleasure to assemble, although it did take quite some time.

I won't go through the installation step-by-step - that's what the instructions are for. Instead, I've just included a few photos of the major steps along the way.

Again, all the hardware is nicely organized and color coded

That's the hardest part - attaching the mobile base and getting the cabinet up

 

The main hardware kit has everything you need, organized,
color coded and ready to go

I found it easiest to hold up the extension wings with some
sawhorses and scrap wood. You could certainly have someone help
you, but these pieces are quite heavy.

With both pieces on I made sure everything was positioned just
right and then tightened the bolts down.

The saw is more or less positioned where I want it, so now I'm
ready to attach the rails.

The rails are long, but not too heavy. They attach easily
and the instructions are clear.