Optimized dust collection and evacuation has become a key safely topic in the woodworking industry. 
Wood based dust is not only a fire and explosion hazard, but also poses employee safety concerns such as slip and fall accidents and respiratory health dangers.

Beyond safety concerns, wood dust simply adds to manufacturing costs through downtime required to manually clean work areas, and increased machine maintenance costs. 

Wood dust infiltrates electric machine motors and sticks to all oiled or greased moving components, creating costly maintenance issues.

Modern dust collection systems have improved the efficiency of extracting dust from the workplace, but dust begins at the cutting tool and optimized dust collection efforts must begin there, too.

 

Standard cutting tool designs simply eject chips and dust out of the gullet at high velocity, oftentimes in the form of a “rooster tail. That makes it virtually impossible for the dust collection system to isolate and remove the dust. 

Dust can also be ejected ahead of the tool or it can be caught in the high velocity airstream around the tool, causing additional tool wear and adversely affecting machining of parts.

 

In the case of edgebanders, dust can cover the material surface, adversely affecting cutting tools with guide wheels.
CNC dust collection is especially difficult, but ideal router geometry can pull chips out of nesting slots, while tool-holder mounted dust vacuums such as Leitz Turbine pull dust upwards toward the collection nozzles.

The dust “rooster tail” created on pod-and-rail-style CNC’s can oftentimes be caught and redirected by rotational scoops tied to the CNC’s C-axis.

 

Simple changes in cutting tool geometry can immediately negate chip and dust velocity, while directing both toward the dust hood intake nozzle. 

Reduced chip velocity allows chips and dust to more easily transition between the high-velocity airstream around the tool to the relatively low velocity dust collection nozzle.

 

Dust collection at the cutting tool can be further optimized with purposefully engineered aftermarket dust hoods, designed around the specific machine and tool aerodynamics, to effectively contain and remove virtually all dust at the source. 
These hoods can also be internally clad with abrasion resistant materials, which prevents internal erosion of the hood, providing the longest possible service life.

 

Leitz can take these dust hoods one step further by adding exterior baffling, which dramatically reduces cutting and dust collection noise at the source.

 

Leitz offers solutions which optimize dust collection. 

Correct tool geometry, combined with well-designed dust collection hoods and sufficient collection system suction, can virtually eliminate shop dust and the associated dangers. 

Elimination of wood chips and dust provides a cleaner, safer, and more enjoyable environment for your employees, and for your equipment, extending the life of your machines and of your tooling.