To reduce dust in my garage, I sealed my table saw and attached a shop vac with a bucket cyclone. Sealing the saw redirects the shop vac’s limited airflow to where it’s needed most: the throat plate. This makes the shop vac a reasonable alternative to an expensive and bulky dust collector. In the process I also extended the outfeed table to make rip cuts safer and easier.
What I did is make a flexible membrane out of multiple strips of tuck tape to seal between the shroud on the DeWalt’s pivoting saw assembly and the bottom of the table.
Is it perfect? No, there are holes at the corners, maybe two square inches total, because Tuck tape doesn’t flex asymmetrically very well. But honestly, the remaining unsealed surface area is probably still smaller than the sum of all the joints and moving parts that is created by attempting to encase the entire assembly in a large box and pass the controls through.
Maybe the geometry of the shroud on a saw stop isn’t favourable? I have to say, the motor hanging off the back is certainly a major downside.
The amount of work on this is crazy.
What I did is make a flexible membrane out of multiple strips of tuck tape to seal between the shroud on the DeWalt’s pivoting saw assembly and the bottom of the table.
Is it perfect? No, there are holes at the corners, maybe two square inches total, because Tuck tape doesn’t flex asymmetrically very well. But honestly, the remaining unsealed surface area is probably still smaller than the sum of all the joints and moving parts that is created by attempting to encase the entire assembly in a large box and pass the controls through.
Maybe the geometry of the shroud on a saw stop isn’t favourable? I have to say, the motor hanging off the back is certainly a major downside.
Agreed, it was a ton of work. The back of the saw was definitely the biggest struggle because of how the motor moved when adjusting tilt and height.
Sealing the blade shroud might have worked. I’d probably try that first if I did this again.