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Regular maintenance oops! safety issue

Hi all here's some thing to keep in mind. That "out of sight out of mind " sort of thing.

I was thinning some spruce on my table saw and did not turn on my dust extractor as it was only two cuts or so. But as it turned out that I filled the workshop in smoke from the friction of the sawblade on the timber.

I turned off the saw and as I walked away I could see smoke still coming out of the cabinet. I thought something had caught alight so I had a look inside, nothing was on fire [this time] but the photos show what I found inside.

Cheers Taff

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Permalink Reply by Tom T on March 14, 2019 at 11:55pm

That's an amazing amount of sawdust. Surprised that it didn't take out the saw motor.

I hate the piles of sawdust on the floor under my saw, but have never come up with a good collection system.

Thanks for sharing what can happen if we are not careful how we handle the sawdust issue.

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Permalink Reply by Korrigan on March 15, 2019 at 1:19am

Regular maintenance? Every 6 years? :D

I'm glad you didn't burn your shop down Taff, and thanks for the reminder... If I ever get a table saw I'll remember this.

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Permalink Reply by François on March 15, 2019 at 6:13am

Holy C***!

That is a lot of sawdust!

I think you might benefit from having some sort of dust collection system. I made a Thien baffle type collector years ago and never regretted it. It sits on top of an 18 liter bucket that I empty a few times a year. The nice thing is you can see a bit through the white bucket so you know when it's almost full. Also, since I made the separator sides out of bent acrylic, just seeing the chips spin in there is better than watching TV.

Getting free entertainment while cleaning is the best part of all :-)

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on March 15, 2019 at 12:45pm

Hi,

Francois I do have a dust extractor it runs to every machine, and it does collect the dust. However the dust shoot on the sawbench is to the side of the saw and does not catch all the dust it seems.

In photo #3 above, I'm going to put another outlet in the left-hand wall of the cabinet facing the saw blade.

Taff

This was a gift from the family after me breathing in dust for 35 or more years.....

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Permalink Reply by François on March 16, 2019 at 3:56am

That is a much better dust collector than mine!

I guess the only thing to do would be to put a transparent panel on the side of the saw so you can keep an eye out for accumulation...

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Permalink Reply by ILL GREEN on March 17, 2019 at 8:40am

You one busy man Taff.

Its a hobby for me but for a day's work, I empty out my vacuum at least 3 times. :D

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Permalink Reply by Taffy Evans on March 17, 2019 at 10:39am

Hi Ill Green, I do this as a hobby too, but as my dust collection bag is emptied regularly ( it's about 1/4 full in that photo) I did not check inside the machine. All is about to change.

Taff