I REALLY need to invest in a planer that is modified woth a hose so I can eliminate all the dust when shaping in my little one car garage…SO…What exactly do I need and where can I buy it (Or if anyone has one for sale let me know…)? I have a 12-gallon shop-vac, will that work for collecting all the dust? If so, I still need a planer and attachment…any advice/help/sugesstionsare much appreciated…I’m in San Diego, and I need it quick (in the next 2 weeks). Thanks.
Pick up the slinky hose at foam-ez and then attach that to some pool cleaning hose at the home depot to run to your shop vac and you are in business. You can run it over the rafters in your garage and drop it right over your shaping area. One less thing to trip over.
I have a spare of each (clark planer & hose) you can borrow if you can’t find one to buy in the next 2 weeks. Just don’t hurt yourself with them… (well, ok, I don’t know how you could hurt yourself with a slinky hose, but in OB anything is possible!)
Foam dust is a bugger . . . I shaped a board over 2 months ago, celly in my pocket. Even today when I pull it free and open it, sometimes I’ll see a splash of foam dust on on it or puff out.
I overheard SD swaylockers mentioning the slinky hose, there is a surgical slinky hose that you can get cheaper than foam ez and its the same thing, and tie it down. The surgical one can stretch insanely you you measure the radius of router useage, and tie the hose down (on the ceiling) so you don’t trip over it . …
Check out Lee Valley Tools ( if they have them in your area) they have some great dust collection systems. best cheap one is just a lid that goes on to a normal garbage can and hooks up to your tool and shopvac. I’ll post a link when I find it.
I REALLY need to invest in a planer that is modified woth a hose so I can eliminate all the dust when shaping in my little one car garage......SO......What exactly do I need and where can I buy it (Or if anyone has one for sale let me know.....)? I have a 12-gallon shop-vac, will that work for collecting all the dust? If so, I still need a planer and attachment...any advice/help/sugesstionsare much appreciated.....I'm in San Diego, and I need it quick (in the next 2 weeks). Thanks.
Teno, at some point I will invest in the Hitachi & spiral grit drum, but right now this is what I rigged up and works for me. 10 months I’ve done 12 boards so far w/my $110 Bosch planer has 5 amps and 18k rpm, you can switch right or left side for dustchip ejection. Found Home Depot soft rubber hose clamp/coupler that fits perfectly on the ejection port, that side stays put. The other side, one turn of the screw tightens or loosens the connection to the vacuum extension hose (a soft flexible kenmoore hand tools hose)
The other end of the vac extension hose is coupler/clamped to a hard plastic tube (the extension tubes that came with an older shop vac) centered & running above my racks. On the other end is another hose clamp where I attach my newer bigger shop vac. Since the new shop vac has a 2-1/4 hose I found a reducing coupler/hose clamp to fit the different openings. Again, one turn of the screw and bingo
Hooked up to my Rigid 14 gal 6hp vac, not a bit of dust hits the floor. When I’m done planing I remove the hose from the planer and tuck that end into the other end of the hard plastic tube along the rafter and tighten the clamp and everything is out of the way.
if you can find cheaper hose that’s great - but even at 25 bucks the clark slinky hose is money well spent. I would never go back to non-stretchy hose after using it. How much cheaper is the surgical stuff and where would you get it?
How is the depth adjustment on that Bosch? And was the exhaust port alreay open like that and you just added the hose? Looks like that might be the way to go at 1/3 the price of the Hitachi…
Yep, open. Besides removing the little plastic ‘kickstand’ thingy & the masking tape holding the cord under the hand grip, no modifications to the planer.
Depth adjust from full closed to full open in about 1/2 turn of the knob. It’s ratcheting clicker increments but dosen’t bother me as I’m not skilled to adjust depth on the fly anyway
I have the same planer too and it’s quite easy to remove the ratcheting mechanism. They’re just these rice sized metal pieces that are in the knob attachment. As soon as you remove the knob the metal pieces almost fall out. Remove them and the ratcheting/clicking sound/feel is gone. Nice and smooth. HTH.
Thanks for all your help…While my setup isn’t as “clean” as most, I’m just stoked that I won’t be walking out of the garage everyday looking like a snowman, and then having a MASSIVE cleanup effort after every board. Picked up the router Bud suggested (Thanks), and found a “Rigid” hose that had an assortment of connectors, one of which fit perfectly onto the ejection port of the router…Fits REAL well actually (It’s soft rubber and is very snug, but can be taken off very easily)…I know the slinky hoses would be great, but I need to get going on a board…Maybe in the future. Oh, and I hung a long fiberglass rod up in the rafters, and the hose(s) can slide either way a good 4’, allowing me to reach the far ends of a log.
Ok, well, I can say the slinky hose does make a WORLD of difference. It’s super light, and because of the “slinky” effect, the additional hose doesn’t touch/drag on the blank when planing, it is ALWAYS off the surface. Stoked. Here’s some pics of it, along with my new (cheap) shaping and glassing racks. I found some leftover insulation at work that has a very sticky adhesive on one side and some shiny stuff on the other. Seems to work great. The glassing “rack” is the right height for glassing (about the middle of my rib cage) and has a very small “footprint” when a board is set on it.
Since we are on the subject of planers, vacums etc. I thought I would ask if any of you have ever seen a vacum that Bosch makes? It’s large like shop-vac, but square, with a handle and wheels. It works as a dust collection system and is very quiet. It only runs while your power tool is being used. Your planer plugs into an outlet on the vacum. When you let off on the trigger of you planer the vac shuts off.
