I have a pretty nice compound miter saw made by Delta called the Cruzer. The problem with it and most miter saws that I’ve used was dust collection. I’ve seen a lot of different concoctions to help improve the situation but none were all that simple, or, the additions compromised the features of the saw. See the simple little trick I used to improved the situation, I am not sure if this is applicable other places but if anyone else has suggestions I would love to hear them. Check out the before and after photos. What I did was insert a piece of stiff flexible plastic between the saw housing and the rubber dust funnel fitting that came with the saw. The plastic actually came from my kitchen, it’s the type of stiff plastic used as a surface for cutting up vegetables. I cut the same piece of 8” - 4/4 wood along with the same Dustless shop vac using the same saw stroke, trying to cut the same way.
It appears that you have funneled the dust to the port, as long as it does not interfere with the saw it should work fine for you. A difficult tool to collect dust from as you know. You have a solution, and let us know how it works out after some use.
Thanks, I've been using it about a month and so far it's doing really well and has not interfered with any angled cuts. It's not prefect but it is way better then what it was. I have not done any compound cuts yet, time will tell on that part.
Good idea, will give it a go myself. If a tool manufacturer ever got a miter saw to have an efficient dust collection it sure would be a strong selling point. The other tool makers would copy it being Chinese.
Did much the same with mine…except I somewhat crudely built the intake out with Gorilla tape. Except for thick pieces of wood, it doesn’t interfere with the cut…and even then it bends out of the way. Does help a lot…especially when I bother to hook up the shop vac… ; ) My miter saw’s discharge faces the garage door and dust collects on the cross supports. Usually I remember to vacuum them off before I open the door… DOH! 🙄
"Did much the same with mine…except I somewhat crudely built the intake out with Gorilla tape. Except for thick pieces of wood, it doesn’t interfere with the cut…and even then it bends out of the way. Does help a lot…especially when I bother to hook up the shop vac… ; ) "
LOL! You made me laugh, love your humor, the only way to get though life is to laugh a little.
Yep, the router aside, the miter box left more dust on the floor than any other tool. The floor all around the miter was always covered in dust.
For a while, I used the back of an old projector television, with a Harbor Freight dust collector pulling from it (it's only job, when it wasn't working with my Super Dust Deputy to doing lawn duty (pine cone and leaf pick up). With a bit of tweaking, it worked, but it took up a lot of room I wanted to be stingy with.
SIDE NOTE: I ran the collector off an auto switch, which made it very convenient to use the collector and miter.
I finally grit my teeth and made the plunge and spent the money on a Rousseau 5000 Dust Solution. It took up far less space than my television projector solution. It did a good job of collecting, with an actual dust collector hooked to it. Even better when I swapped the impeller for the RIKON version.
There was a significant gap above my Bosch, which meant a lot of air was being drawn above the unit. I took a lesson from sanding table and laid a piece of nylon I had over the gap and the collection improvement was notable.
I'm going the RCC route with Gorilla Duct tape. See how that goes. The tent maybe excellent but takes up way too much space for me!
I have a dedicated shop vac hooked up to a dust deputy with the auto switch (turns on vac when I start the Mitre saw) Sill there is dust around, but then, I take out the new Dewalt leaf blower and woosh all the dust is outside!
It would be nice if they made those tents adjustable. You can see the huge gap I was talking about in the photo. That's 12 or so inches that could be taken off the height.
For my slider, not much would be gained on the sides, since when the saw is fully up against the fence it matches the tent reasonably close.
If they made a couple different versions addressing the height issue, or made it adjustable (e.g., excess rod could be cut off), they'd sell a lot more of them.
I've seen several versions of a dust box behind the fence that looks promising too. Basically you build a box around all of the interferences behind the fence, put a hose on both ends and then cut thru it with the miter saw blade. They look like the best solution. Anything is better than my current set up - blowing the dust all over my daughter's basement. MDF trim makes it even worse. Miter saw, table saw, router table, drill press are all on the list of tools that absolutely need attention to get better dust collection once I get a few minutes to work on shop projects.
Years ago, I built an [approximately] six foot wide cabinet dedicated to the miter. The center was dropped down and had a board on it that could be adjusted for the height of whatever miter you used, to insure the surfaces to the right and left were flush with the miter bed.
It worked well because it was built like shelving, so I was able to focus the air through the area where the miter was, and it was segregated from the areas under the saw and to the left and right. In short, it solved most the dust problem and added a lot of needed horizontal storage-resting surfaces.
It went with the saw when I got a "better" one, which was much larger than the old Delta.
I miss that Delta - because it didn't do compounds or slide, it was accurate enough to do picture frames.
