Getting rid of dust

Is there any way to get rid of foam dust that shoots all over the room when I use an electric planer?

I searched the archives, but to no avail.

I hear you can purchase a bag that goes around the part where the dust comes out of the planer, is this true? Does it work? Are there any other solutions to my problem?

If this is in the archives somewhere, could someone give me some good keywords to use to find a topic on it? I searched with keywords like “planer bag”, or “dust problem”, “dust removal”, etc. Or, just give me a direct hyperlink to a thread that talks about this problem.

Thanks a lot.

EDIT: Sweeping is not an answer since I always miss spots, and it gets EVERYWHERE. I shape in my garage. And sometimes I get foam dust on the car or all over the furniture and stuff that we store in the garage, which is difficult to get rid of.

My mom says I can not shape under any circumstances until I find a solution to the dust problem. I am 16 years old and I have no choice but to shape in my garage, so please help an aspiring shaper out!

The easiest way is to just connect your planner to the end of a shop vac. I did it last time by just holding it over the port and it caught 90% of the stuff. Check the Clark Blanks pdf file (its near the end) for an even better way.

you could hook up your planner to a house and run it to a vacumn. its true that you can get a bag for your planer. but its only going to take two passes before its full. just make sure that you ground your tubing because you can get a heck of a shock.

i too like most everyone on here shapes in their garage. and its a hassel trying to pick up all that dust. so i set up a bunch of tarps around when i am using the planer. it still sprays but it keeps it in a more controlable area.

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The easiest way is to just connect your planner to the end of a shop vac. I did it last time by just holding it over the port and it caught 90% of the stuff. Check the Clark Blanks pdf file (its near the end) for an even better way.

Thanks a lot turbo and Dan.

Now, I was wondering, what is a shop vac? Where can I get it, and how much does it cost? Can I find it online anywhere?

There are a number of ways to deal with this but the easiest is to get hold of a workshop vacuum cleaner and attach the hose to the planer. If the hose is long enough you can attach it to the ceiling over board so the it doesn’t come into contact with the foam. My hose is attached to curtain runner so it moves along with me as i am planing. It’s an inexpensive set up but works a treat !

Steve

you can probably find one for a decent price (under $50) at walmart or other fine retailers.

I’m in the same boat as JWL except it isn’t my mother who complains, it’s the wife. Couple of questions. I assume the vacume is running while I’m planing? And, how do I ground the hose to avoid the shock?Mike

Home Depot’s Rigid brand does a good job and its very affordable.

The unit is grounded through the outlet and the hose is plastic. I guess it could build up a little static charge, but it was no problem for me. Clark’s system is based on a shopvac and they have no worries.

Maybe I’m a fool or just really tired of all the mess and the baking Ewa sun but I just went to other end of the spectrum and spent a close to grand on a Festools Rotex 125, a CT22 Vacuum, and enough sandpaper to last a lifetime.

This is to replace my belt sander, hand sander and Mouse lap sander which I’ve hooked up to my 6.5HP shopvac but still have to manually vacuum the front yard down to clean up what doesn’t go in the vacuum.

I don’t know if a hose/vacuum jig to a planer will catch as much of the flying debris as the Festools will.

Pretty much now, a broke hobbiest at this point. But definietly looking forward to working in the patio under the shade and not polluting the house through the jalousies with foam, wood or glass dust…

I hoping it’s quieter that that shop vac+belt sander combo too…

Sways what have you done?

So I’m a bit confused with this shop vac.

Are you guys saying that the hose attaches to the planer?

And pretend you’re talking to someone who knows nothing about power tools or a workshop vacuum. What is “grounding the tubing” and what is the procedure for it?

Thanks so much for your patience and help.

your planer should have an outlet where all the dust shoots out from if it doesn’t then you are out of luck…

If it does then you’ll need to find a connector that fits over the outlet and connects to the hose that come out of your vacuum cleaner if you have one of those…

connect the adapter to the planer.

connect the hose to the adaptor you might need duct tape to do this.

connect the hose to the vacuum

plug the vacuum in

turn on the vacuum

turn on the planer

start planing

don’t cut the electrical cable coming out of the planer if you have one (its not DC is it?)

Wear a mask

Wear eye protection

Wear hearing protection

Clean up the rest of the mess with the vacuum it ain’t gonna catch it all you’ll see…

you can buy special slinky extension hoses from clark to string it up overhead to get it out of the way of manage the hose and cable manually while you work.

Most shop vac hose are too short so look for an extension… You may nee one that steps down to a smaller diameter to fit your machine. They have all this at the hardware stores…

Okay, thanks so much everyone.

I guess I’ll go and get one.

Thank god, my planer has an outlet where all the dust shoots out.

Once again, thanks so much for the help.

Swaylocks is the best

What you’re looking at here is a Shop Vac with a washing machine hose extension. Then I cut out the bottom of a plastic cup & stuffed in the white hose. This was my old planer with a square (!) outlet - not so useful. So I cut a square out of a piece of foam to fit over it and then cut the outside of the foam to round. Epoxied the foam to the inside of the red cup. No leaks unless the hose gets plugged and then crap spits out from around the blade, but that’s really obvious when it happens. Usually, its not from foam but from splinters of wood from stringers, balsa rails, etc., so just go really slow over those spots and you’re ok.

Now I have another planer with a round exit hole and the other end of the washing machine hose - the 90* rubber elbow end - fits right over it. I recommend the washer hose because that 90* bend helps you keep the hose out of your way when you’re working. You can get a Shop Vac reducer to make the Vac hose fit the washer hose perfect.

Wow.

Awesomeness.

But what is grounding the tube? You say that if you don’t ground out the tube, you’ll get a pretty bad electric shock.

JLW,

I attached the Clark slinky hose to the hose that comes with the Shop-Vac. That gives me plenty of length. You also need to have a bag inside your Shop-Vac. My Shop-Vac came with a very nice pleated filter. One problem is the filter loads up quickly with foam dust. Second problem is you end up with the Shop-Vac container full of loose dust. It’s almost impossible to empty the container without making a huge mess. So use the optional vacuum cleaner type bags and change them when full.

The vacuum setup catches an amazing amount of planer dust. Now, if someone could just figure out how to put a vacuum attachment on the sanding block and surform!

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JLW,

I attached the Clark slinky hose to the hose that comes with the Shop-Vac. That gives me plenty of length. You also need to have a bag inside your Shop-Vac. My Shop-Vac came with a very nice pleated filter. One problem is the filter loads up quickly with foam dust. Second problem is you end up with the Shop-Vac container full of loose dust. It’s almost impossible to empty the container without making a huge mess. So use the optional vacuum cleaner type bags and change them when full.

Hey Nick,

when you say “optional vacuum cleaner type bags”, what do you mean?

i can take care of this man just wait till memorial day i will explain all this then and also it might be worthy whil to make your self a shapping shack.

JLW,

The Shop-Vac I bought sucks all the dirt, foam dust, or whatever into a big plastic tank. The plastic tank is the bottom half of the Shop-Vac. So to empty the tank, you take off the top half and dump out the stuff in the tank. The foam dust flys everywhere when you empty the tank.

To prevent this, you can buy disposable “vacuum cleaner” type bags at the place that sells Shop-Vacs. These bags are designed to fit inside the tank. When the bag is full, you remove and replace with a new bag. You can neatly take out the full bag and dispose of it.

These bags are just like the ones inside your Mom’s vacuum cleaner. She should be stoked that you are no longer covering the garage and her car with white powder.

Nick

Buy the clark foam slinky hose and figure out some way to attach it to your planer. It makes all the difference. Hook it up to a shop vac. when you empty out the vac, do it outside, with a black plastic bag over the vac, before you turn it over. Problem solved! -Carl