First of all, lets look at the size of the waste coming off your cutting blades. Probably the largest pieces are chips coming from planers and jointers, but these tools are also creating some dust at the same time. The worst offender for fine dust is sanding, with band saws coming in a close second. We don't have to worry too much about pieces of wood we can see, as a rule these are heavier than air and fall immediately to the floor. It is the smaller pieces that we inhale, the "micron sized" pieces, so small that they appear as a mist or smoke in the air.

Many of the latest dust collectors are boasting of "one micron dust bags". This means dust that is on just slightly larger than one micron will be captured. So, how big is one micron you ask? Well, ... 1 micron is a millionth of a meter or 1 inch divided into 25,400 parts. In real terms a grain of salt is 100 microns, talc powder is 10 microns. The black smoke you see coming from diesel trucks and buses is mostly between 3 - 5 microns. The average bacteria is 2 microns. One micron is approaching the size of wood smoke ... in fact, 90% of wood smoke is just slightly smaller than one micron.

Now that you know what the size of dust you can capture, the next question is how do you go about it. The best approach is two-fold. A dust collector to get the big stuff and an air cleaner to constantly work on the smallest stuff.

Lets deal with the air cleaner first. This is simply an industrial sized unit that hangs from your ceiling or sits on your floor and constantly draws air through, cleans it and ejects it out the other side.
 
The dust collector is where things start getting more complicated. The first question to ask is - Will my dust collector be stationary or will I move it from machine to machine as I am using it? If it is going to be stationary, the next question is how large is your shop? And what is the draw of air I will need? Here is where dust collection sizing gets complicated.

If you are simply going to move a smaller dust collector from tool to tool (this is not as bad as it seems, at least for hobbyists), then any dust collector with a one micron bag and fan that can draw over 600 cubic feet per minute (CFM) should work fine. There are many manufactures of both smaller and larger units like Delta, Jet Tools, The JDS Company, Laguna Tools, Grizzly Industrial and many more.

If on the other hand you have a larger shop and are going to install a fixed dust collector and run duct work piping from each machine to your dust collector, you may need some professional help in sizing your dust collector and getting recommendations on pipe sizes, ducting and types of material options.

And don't forget about actually cleaning the air you are breathing with an air filter the continously filters the air in your shop. These are particularly useful for people who are doing smaller projects and "son't think" they are creating much dust ... when in fact they are, like scroll sawing, which throws up far more dust than most scrollers can believe. These fixed air cleaners will keep your lungs cleaner and you breathing easier.

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