It seems the saw leaves a little pile of sawdust after each use on the floor under the cab. I looked inside to check if I missed something and it appears to be a design issue.
Harvey Cabinet Saw
- Thread starter oldtexasdog
- Start date
I think it's a combination of design and the problem itself. The way sawdust flies off a blade it's really difficult to capture it. I did a fair amount of work on my Harvey to improve it, but haven't really been able to get it to my satisfaction. I made a shroud that goes on the insert plate to help capture what goes down, but it obviously doesn't help with anything that flies off on top. I just have the stock overhead system and when I can use it, it helps, but often times it's just in the way.
It looks like you put some time, thought, and effort into that. Was it worth it? I guess I can just disconnect the 4" hose when done and move the saw over and vacuum it up. That's not too hard.
There was some improvement, but I don’t think it was enough to justify the effort. It doesn’t really matter if you have a little less dust if you still have some, you still have to deal with it.
One of the issues is the floor is too low and the port, at least on mine, is an inch or so above the floor. So I raised the floor and corners to direct the airflow into the port. I run 6 inch dusts to my CV. Even with my SawStop over-arm, I get some dust. Look inside your cabinet and think about the airflow. I added some ports on the motor door low to help with the raking flow across the floor of the saw. Unfortunately, my older saw does not even have a lower blade shroud. More bad design, the port is a flat entry into the cabinet. It should have a 1/2 inch or so radius. The square edge reduces the effective port diameter by about 15%. If I had a printer, I would make one.
I have some other ideas but the effort to develop is too much. The worst offender is taking a narrow shaving off an edge. My thought here is a pop up port to catch the spray directly. I did some testing with a hose/magswitch arrangement and it worked pretty well, but just too clumsy. I think it could be built into the table.
Another idea is to reduce the dust carried by the gullets back out of the back of the plate by building a little ramp on the side of a lower shroud and the wind from the blades would push the dust from the gullets. I would have to pull my top to do this and it is not worth the effort as I do far more work on the BS or by hand now.
Another idea is for the saw to pass through a slot in a duct with forced crossflow. How to clear things for raise and tilt would be a challenge, but I think possible. Again, it means taking the top off for access. The port exit on the lower rear of most shrouds is fine only if the dust has been blown out first.
On the same problem. add a scraper across the teeth before the lower shroud port to scrape the airflow with the dust that has left the gullets before it is blown back up through the insert. THink of this like a second ZCI below the table.
The only dust free woodworking is in an enclosed CNC cabinet.
I have some other ideas but the effort to develop is too much. The worst offender is taking a narrow shaving off an edge. My thought here is a pop up port to catch the spray directly. I did some testing with a hose/magswitch arrangement and it worked pretty well, but just too clumsy. I think it could be built into the table.
Another idea is to reduce the dust carried by the gullets back out of the back of the plate by building a little ramp on the side of a lower shroud and the wind from the blades would push the dust from the gullets. I would have to pull my top to do this and it is not worth the effort as I do far more work on the BS or by hand now.
Another idea is for the saw to pass through a slot in a duct with forced crossflow. How to clear things for raise and tilt would be a challenge, but I think possible. Again, it means taking the top off for access. The port exit on the lower rear of most shrouds is fine only if the dust has been blown out first.
On the same problem. add a scraper across the teeth before the lower shroud port to scrape the airflow with the dust that has left the gullets before it is blown back up through the insert. THink of this like a second ZCI below the table.
The only dust free woodworking is in an enclosed CNC cabinet.
I have the HW110S which actually has the dust shroud under the blade. Even with that and the additional shroud I made I still get significant buildup inside the cabinet. I tried at one point to add a T-connector in the hose at the bottom of the cabinet to suck the stuff that’s getting by the shroud arrangement but it didn’t help. The hose coming off the bottom of the shroud is only 3” which I question. However when I run the saw and watch, it appears to be sucking everything out…and obviously it’s not!
Had my Harvey for a few years. Just checked the blade stops. Only off by .05 degree. Pretty good if you ask me. Motor is against the tension stop and I think it should be just a tad tighter based on how much flutter I see in the belts. I actually hate V belts and think a multi-rib belt with spring tension is a better design. I may think about adding an idler to reduce the vibrations, though they are minimal.
I added a "shelf" in the bottom of the door so it can't collect dust. I added a raised sloped floor with the bottom edge flush with a larger 6 inch port opening. As an older version, I do not have the blade shroud so all flow is through the cabinet. I still get a little dust in one corner.
Table saws typically are expecting a low lift, high flow dust collector. Read that "big cyclone". A 3 inch hose is what one might hook up to a portable tool with a high lift, lower flow dust extractor or shop vac. A high lift will never do much to clean out a big leaky cabinet. The cabinet is designed to allow high flow through a lot of intentional gaps. I actually added a series of holes in my door to improve flow.
One must consider their expectations. The important thing is to collect as much ultra fine dust, as in sub micron, from the air so you don't die of lung disease. Sweeping up a little larger sawdust is expected. Some build up in the cabinet is expected. No one ever advertised it is not. If you think a blade shroud is going to collect all the dust, think again. If you believe woodworking can be dust free, maybe take up chip carving. Not that the machine designers have done a decent job. They clearly have not and we do need to beat them up about it.
What might be fun to see how it works is to hook up a "booster" blower off the blade guard dumpling into the cabinet and then a big collector on the base port. I still believe we can make the blade do the blower work with some carefully placed ramps and shutters.
Another thought is to use the Cam-Vac three-head collector system and plumb one head to the shroud, one to the overarm guard, and one to the cabinet. As they have higher lift they can deal with the smaller port size and restrictions of the shroud and overarm. All three together is close to a moderate big cyclone flow. If I did not have my clear Vue, I would go that route.
I added a "shelf" in the bottom of the door so it can't collect dust. I added a raised sloped floor with the bottom edge flush with a larger 6 inch port opening. As an older version, I do not have the blade shroud so all flow is through the cabinet. I still get a little dust in one corner.
Table saws typically are expecting a low lift, high flow dust collector. Read that "big cyclone". A 3 inch hose is what one might hook up to a portable tool with a high lift, lower flow dust extractor or shop vac. A high lift will never do much to clean out a big leaky cabinet. The cabinet is designed to allow high flow through a lot of intentional gaps. I actually added a series of holes in my door to improve flow.
One must consider their expectations. The important thing is to collect as much ultra fine dust, as in sub micron, from the air so you don't die of lung disease. Sweeping up a little larger sawdust is expected. Some build up in the cabinet is expected. No one ever advertised it is not. If you think a blade shroud is going to collect all the dust, think again. If you believe woodworking can be dust free, maybe take up chip carving. Not that the machine designers have done a decent job. They clearly have not and we do need to beat them up about it.
What might be fun to see how it works is to hook up a "booster" blower off the blade guard dumpling into the cabinet and then a big collector on the base port. I still believe we can make the blade do the blower work with some carefully placed ramps and shutters.
Another thought is to use the Cam-Vac three-head collector system and plumb one head to the shroud, one to the overarm guard, and one to the cabinet. As they have higher lift they can deal with the smaller port size and restrictions of the shroud and overarm. All three together is close to a moderate big cyclone flow. If I did not have my clear Vue, I would go that route.
