I made yet another dust shoe/vaccuum pipe holder (40mm OD pipe). Attached to the middle assembly so it doesn’t move in Z direction with the tool. It also uses the existing bolts for attaching the pipe.
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I like the design and may print this out. What would be good would for there to be an easy way to adjust the shoe height vertically. I’m sure you can loosen and tighten the nuts/bolts on the 3 points that attach to the mid-assembly, but then you have to get out a screwdriver every time you change work piece height. Maybe people could just swap out the nuts for a thumbscrew for hand tightening.
You wouldn’t need that much height adjustment. Maybe just the bottom bracket? Or is there a flange or something for the PVC that would work?
The way this type of shoe works is that you have the brushes set right on top of the work piece and the router moves up and down inside of it while it is vertically stationary. In order to work with different material thickness, you need to adjust the shoe up and down vertically and lock it in place. You’d need as much adjustment as the widest thickness you’ll cut.
I understand that completely. How much variance is there in thickness of the materials you’re cutting? The thickest I’ve carved is 1.5" and the smallest was 3/8", so about 1" difference would be enough for me.
1" of adjustment is the difference between the the brushes sitting right above the top of a 1" piece of wood and having it’s brushes squished against the material causing some pushback.
Yeah - you only need probably about an inch of adjustment, but without the adjustment you are kind of defeating the idea behind having the shoe static vertically. If it’s static, too much space below the shoe and you aren’t going to suck all the dust, and not enough space and the brushes will push into the material working against the motors.
Thanks for your comments!
Yep, it’s a bit of a hassle to move it up and down. The way I’ve used is that the 3 points that attaches to the assembly and holds the pipe have been fixed and then I’m moving the shoe up and down. There is some room for adjustment there, maybe not a full inch but close. I may keep the screw for holding the foot, but I think I will add a nut trap to make it easier to loosen it.
I’d also like an easier way to get the whole shoe off so I can see the tool for zeroing on start/tool change. I’m thinking of something with magnets, or even sliding the brush part onto the foot (needs to be a 2 part brush holder then of course).
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