Shop Work: How to get better dust collection with a Miter saw dust shroud 

I'm making one tomorrow. I might make to top out of foam see if it gives it better flexibility. Thanks for the idea and inspiration. Great job

That works extremely well my friend.

In general there are two motivations for dust control: 1) clean up the mess; 2) save your lungs from small (1--3 micron) particles. You got #1 pretty well covered. To reduce small particle contamination, you either wear a breathing apparatus, or engage some exhaust action. A miter saw is a real challenge because there's a very vigorous liberation of small particles. Containment barriers on 5 sides of the cube, plus exhaust inside the containment area definitely help a lot. If you have a large enough space, set a horizontal fan to blow past your shoulder, carrying the fines away from your face; they settle after travelling a few feet. Capture and exhaust is the best strategy.

When I bought my new miter saw, it came with a small plastic bag of sawdust. The instructions said to put the sawdust in the collection bag so that you will think the thing is working. The Sawdust Collection Illusion Bag is working great and I never have to empty it! Thanks for a great video!

That's why I pull my mitersaw outside and point it at my neighbors yard. Then no worries about dust collection. :)

You are the only one that I've seen that have a great solution for the problem, I just bought a new slider mightier saw that dust goes everywhere like yours, so this is perfect. Thanks you so much for sharing your idea!!! :D

No outtakes! I feel cheated! This is a perfect opportunity for minor burn pains. Trust me, I have done it. At first I thought you were going to slide the beveled piece through the larger piece and wedge it in. Never thought about making a flat flange on it. Nice. Another great instructional Drew.

What a convincing demonstration. Excellent work. Thank you..

Significant improvement, I am always exploring new ideas of achieving better dust collection on all my tools.

This video still holds up. Except for the part where you blow the dust out of the bucket, hoo boy have we gotten sensitive to dust since 2017!

WOW! You think like I do, only better. Will build one as soon as I finish cleaning up my dusty shop. Thanks!

Wow!! Your shop and videos have both come a long way since this video!! Keep up the great work!!

Good video and great idea! This is a real problem with miter saws for all.

Thanks for the ideas!

Great comparison. Thank you

great how to i will have to give it a go iv seen several ways of doing it but yours looks good,like you said its a hard one to stop all dust doing its own thing

Nice solution. Thank you for the test 👍👍👍

Great design!

Good job. Good presentation. That said, this solution, like majority of others on YT, should be titled, in effect, improved dust collection for 90 degree crosscuts. As pro finish carpenter, any "solution" that relegates the saw incapable of making the full range of compound cuts leaves the real problem basically unsolved. The solution of this video is valuable for most shop work, but only if the problem is so redefined. Still, thanks for posting.

Going through same realization with stock dust flap on new miter, nice before after ....

Pure witchcraft! Love your idea. One of the best solutions I've seen.

Holy crap Fisher ! I'll build one tomorrow! THANKS

That, sit, is what one would refer to as a “Dramatic increase”!.....well done!

brilliant. definitely trying this. such small little adjustments that can make such a big difference in airborne saw-dust; less cleaning and better air-quality in your lungs! thanks for sharing this

So far this seems to be the easiest shroud to build. Good job 👏🏻. Others I have seen are quite complicated and bulky that mounts to a wall. I’m gonna use you system for sure. Thanks

Wow great idea

Wow amazing!!!

Rookie woodworker here, just bought a bunch of new tools including a miter saw and the first thing I noticed was how bad the vacuum/miter dust chute system was at it's job. Now that you gave me the best version I've seen. I have a suggestion which is what I will do for mine. The issue you said you were having is doing miter cuts so you have to remove if you want to do those cuts, right? May I suggest cutting the left/back side as low as miter bevels then adding a left back corner wall with sliders and adjustment knobs that you can tighten or loosen to proper height for your specific cut. Thanks again for this genius idea.

good job.

Great idea! Thanks for sharing

Vast improvement , good job.

Excellent job on the dust shroud Will be looking into building one 👍

Absolutely Brilliant solution, ⚙️🛠⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I haven't seen anything better !

This is the best and simplest I've seen so far. Plus all those other bulky box things hanging off the back are chunky and unsightly. I will be making something similar for my Makita chop saw.. thanks for sharing..

Superb! I must make one of these. Thanks for sharing!

That works fairly well. I may make something similar for mine.

Very smart! I like it. Most of my cuts are also 90 degrees.

Great video man.. pretty smart

VERY impressive. Bookmarking this video with the plan to make one of these myself. Thanks.

Nice work! If you would add a piece of 1/4" to the back fence it would keep the small pieces from going in the collector. This will usually give you a safer and better cut, it does for me. Keep up the good work!

you inspired me. i mounted a small square plastic trash can (12" square x 10" deep) behind my chop saw table. Used a hole-saw to make an opening in the bottom to put the shopvac hose through. Being further back than yours, its not as efficient, but it doesn't interfere with the operation of the saw in any way and probably get about 75% of the dust. It took me 45 minutes to rig up (would be 10 minutes if I did it a second time, its that simple).

Great idea, I am going to make one as well. However, I will make sure to pull the plug.

I really like your approach. Wondering if you could make the top where the slot for the blade goes replaceable so you could drop in a new top with a 45 degree slot for miters? A few replaceable tops for the common miter positions might do the trick

This is one of the most difficult problems in the shop to solve. Our compound miter saw runs almost as much as the cabinet saw. This is a nice little attachment for straight cuts. Where we differ is that most of our cuts on that machine are in fact, not 90 degree chops, although, there are quite a few of those as well. We have a little homemade chute that just extends the factory chute on the back of the shroud that allows for at least some more dust to direct up into the vac hose, but we also have a box of masks next to the machine and a vac hose with a nozzle ready to clean up afterwards! Anyway, you've done an impressive job both with design as well as with manufacture on this. Nice work.

Excellent idea and very effective can you post more about how you made it?

That's a great idea. I need to make one of these for mine. I bet mocking up one of these with cardboard would help to get the odd shapes dialed in to make one of these.

just so ya know, soft woods don't have much silica in 'em but hard woods do. Ya gotta filter down to a micron. Silica in the lungs causes cumulative damage that doesn't heal.

Señor, You are a genius!!!! 😉

Great solution. My saw is a non-slider, but I'm going to something when I'm done with my current projects. I like the small size. I'm sure those giant tents are great, but in my small basement shop they are way too big. Also, I plan to try using the dust bag over the existing dust port. There was something called the Keen Dust Chuter. The patent was bought by Milescraft and then never made. You could do miter cuts with it.

Hola! 🖐 That was a very interesting experiment and it seems that you found a good solution that works for you. It's awesome that using MDF you were able to form a shape that works for your application. There are lots of videos about "solving" the dust collection at the miter say, I really enjoyed this one. Take care and have a good one, Adios! 👊

What a nice saw! I'm so used to seeing all of the usual suspects, Dewalt, Bosch, Makita, Festool, etc. That is the first time I remember seeing a 12" Craftsman SCMS. Nice!

would it improve the vacuum draw if the hole to your vacuum where lower, more in line with the kickout from the saw blade?

How has no engineer at any of these large companies came up with a basic shroud like this? Plastic mold that clips onto the base, boom, done.

Very cool! I have not thought about this one but man what a great solution.!!!! I will have to try and make one for my miter saw! Great tip, thanks for posting!

Okay I have the same miter saw. I. We'd the dimensions to the shroud so I can make one. Great video. I'm a subscriber now.

Love the idea, but I have to ask. What kind of wood work do you do to keep such a clean and organized shop? I only wish mine looked that good! LOL.

Not only good it’s so much less cumbersome than other solutions

The shroud can be used as new model for the Dart Vader head in remake of Star wars.

Love it, subscribed #340

I copied your design a bit, but i also use the standard dust port that you closed...so i use 2 dust collectors at the same time....Bassicaly it collects 95% now.

dude, you better patten that and start working on other brands of miter saws quickly because others will as soon as they see this video. the major brands will be calling you soon. I would pay extra for that. how do you think Craig jig and others got started. that's ingenious. kodos to you.

One thing you should do is put a screen over the vacuum hole in the shroud so that it doesn't suck up the cedar stuff

Every little bit helps. I have thinking that a person could use the exhaust of the vac to guide the dust into a suction shroud like yours. Maybe just hook it up to where the suction is supposed to hook to the saw.

nice video, I'm curious how well it collects dust with cutting a wider board. That saw can handle some bigger boards. how well does it collect when you have a larger piece with the blade fully extended?

Do you have the plans for this?

Very impressive! Too bad you didn't film the fabrication of the chute as that process must have been quite challenging.

Would it help to have this section at the bottom of your box so that the draw is going up is inside the hose instead of inside the box

Heya Fisher, old video, but did you ever try the Y adapter suggestion? That idea seems really interesting to me because you can remove the shroud and still get the partial original dust collection during your miters/bevels.

Problem with your saw is the position of the laser. Because of where it is positioned you can not have any kind of dust collection boot in behind the blade. That being said, your solution works very well. If you wanted to use a larger diameter hose from your Dust Deputy could you not come in from left side instead of behind the blade? Just a thought. Love your videos and your sense of humour.

I have the same saw . It would be great to have the plans for the pieces to cut and just put together. I'm INTERESTED ! Anyone have them ?

I'm trying to invent a way to use expanding foam to make a shroud

I THINK you might get better results if you put a splitter on the hose and add one to the saw's dust collection...

Nice work. A problem with dust collection with this much static pressure on a mitre saw i that it suck up mall off cuts which can then cause blade and arbour bending kick backs when the piece jams between the fence and the blade. Have you experienced this?

That seems to have done the Trick for Your Saw... But it appears to me that even with Black paint on your shroud the material is “OSB” and not “particle board”... LoL Good Work My Woodworking Friend... Greg

Please teach how to make one! Step by step please!

You would have another serious improvement if you make a Zero clearance Throat plate on the table of your saw!

Nice! I have that same saw. It's a good saw but dust collection sucks...pun intended.

What a great piece of kit!!! Well thought through....Hurry up and patent it!! A zero clearance insert works really well and especially with an under saw suction hood (planer hood upside down)....in getting the larger dust particles collected however all saws produce this incredibly microscopic 1 micron or less dust haze that is spewed out of the back of the blade towards the user....that's the super difficult one to collect..... Without wanting to start some argument or involve weird conspiracy theories....for 25 yrs the manufacturers (and by an large they're often as ineffectual and confounding as each other - not counting the cloned copies of course 🤔😀) how is it that a fellow (and NO DISRESPECT INTENDED WHATSOEVER) can produce TWO significant dust reduction strategies in the space of one RU-vid channel and more than 20 different manufacturers over 25 years cannot? Beggars belief that they're trying as hard as they can....wonder how long til they start allowing litigation in the US from end users regarding dust damage to lungs from poorly designed dust collection on mitre saws? There has to be a better way for users who spend multi million dollars pa to get better products than wait until someone produces a RU-vid video..... Some caveats...I'm no safety nazi, nor troll, yet I do smoke, (I understand smoke and dust) am not from USA and I have 3 mitre saws of which one is a Festool Kapex....(arguably the best saw on the planet....trust me, the other 2 ain't!!!).

Any rough dimensions or sketchup??? for the Dust shroud? I have the same saw

Do you have drawings of the dust hood? Hopefully with dimensions

Do you have plans for the shroud?

Unrelated question, I always se people using air hoses like you showed in this video, or for brad nailers . Are they hooked up to air compressors that just get shut off for the video? I’m totally new to woodworking so please excuse me if it’s a dumb question.

I've never seen a miter saw that had decent dust collection. And the dust bags that come with the saws are a joke!! I believe that the dust collection bags that come with miter saws are pre-filled with about 3 tablespoons of sawdust. Because that is all that is EVER collected!! I'll have to try your set up. Seems like it works very well and it beats blowing it in my neighbors open window.

Five stars

I like it but just a thought. Why not rig up a y for the hose and then also use the small opening on the saw as well or leave the bag on as opposed to making the plug

It’s really unfortunate that you didn’t show us how you built your shroud. It’s true that shrouds will vary depending upon the model of saw; however, some guidance would be helpful. And it’s difficult to see how your shroud is made and assembled, because it’s already painted a flat black. Thanks for your efforts and for giving me some fuel for thought.

What about mitre and bevel cuts? I do a LOT of those

can you make those for all miter saw brands? I would like to make one for my saw!

why dont you use the dust duck hat on the saw at the same time

That exposed insulation drives me nuts... great idea with the shroud

7:56 the duct tape is no good. The saw won't be able to shed the dust that gets in there and it will be build up. You are better off Y'ing off your vacuum hose to simultaneously suck from your shroud AND the original extraction port.

First, my friend, NO miter saw will ever allow you to draw anywhere near enough dust from the machine as long as they keep only providing 2” or smaller dust ports. 4-inch port is an absolute MUST for a power miter saw, period, end of story. So, connect up a 4-Inch hose, and one heck of a powerful dust collector. Then at least you’ll have enough suction to pull enough dust through that stupid 2-inch built-in port.

put a piece of mesh or something over the dust collector to not suck in pieces of wood

Not being able to cut a miter on a miter saw is a pretty big design flaw.

I think you spent more time improving the dust collection on your miter saw here than the team of “design engineers” who made the saw. I’ve had Hitachi, DeWalt, Porter Cable and all were like yours. A friend has a Ryobi and it’s even worse. It catches NOTHING. The only brand that seems to invest any time in real dust collection on their tools is Festool, but they are crazy overpriced even for professionals. My Grizzly cabinet saw is real bad too. There is a shroud around the blade that catches about .002% of the dust created. The rest seems directed up at my face. I have a big 5 hp cyclone dust collector hooked up to all of them and the only tools that seem to have decent dust collection are my 8” jointer and my big planer. Both create massive amounts of dust.

You need a credit card to cut a line.

Patent that baby and make some $$$.

First mistake, you bought a Craftsman. Poor dust collection design.