We have been mostly turning pens from wood or plastics on our Jet Midi Lathe for the last year. Cleaning up all those wood chips and the sawdust from sanding was a real chore. We got a dust collector from Jet and now use it and this dust hood from Penn State Industries to significantly reduce this onerous task.
DLHOODC2 Clear Wood Lathe Dust Hood With Magnetic Mounting Clamp
When you are turning wood on a lathe a lot of chips fly off. When you are sanding wood on a lathe, a lot of sawdust flies off. Some of that gets on you and some on the floor or the lathe parts. It scatters pretty far sometimes as well. The chips are a potential hazard to body parts like eyes and arms. Sawdust, particularly the very fine variety that occurs when sanding with fine grits, is a hazard to your nose, throat, and lungs.
One thing that can reduce this hazard and mess is a hood that focuses a stream of air over the part being turned and sucks those pesky, and dangerous, things into a vacuum. There are many hoods available and many more have been made by turners. Penn State Industries has made a name for themselves in pen turning supplies and in dust collection systems. They have put that dual expertise to good use in this dust hood sized perfectly for a small dust collector and for turning pens and other small parts on a lathe. It is a pretty simple box made of clear plastic. It has a connection on one end for a 4" flexible dust collection hose. On the other side is an opening that is just about the right size, 6" by 9", to pretty well enclose a pen blank. There are cutouts that allow it to partially wrap around the headstock and pen spindle to trap much of the detritus from turning. On the top front is a hinged clear plastic shield that does a pretty good job of deflecting those chips that seem to want to hit your face and eyes. It can be swung up out of the way when you need to get your hands near the turning, like for sanding, polishing, and finishing.
There is a metal angle bracket with two strong magnets that can be held to the back of the lathe bed and adjusted to get the hood positioned just right around the work piece. We will discuss the shortcomings of this feature later. It is designed to be used with a 4" hose, but we have heard from others that using a 4" to 2 1/2" adaptor allows it to be used with the more powerful shop vacuums successfully. We haven't tried that.
In Use
We have made a couple of dozen pens since installing this inexpensive (if you don't count the cost of the dust collector) lathe accessory and have no intention of removing it. It doesn't get all the chips, but around 90% of them go directly through the 4" hose to the dust collector. Cleanup is much easier. Where it shines is in keeping that fine sawdust from sanding out of the air and our nose. It is great to see a stream of fine dust heading to the collector. Prior to this addition we used a powered mask to protect our face and lungs. Now it is not necessary. We feel comfortable with just the protection of the dust hood and safety glasses.
Mounting it, however, does create some problems. With that 4" hose hanging off the back the magnets on the dust hood make an iffy connection. The location of the bracket in the center back of the hood also interferes with placement of the lathe tool rest assembly. We have to angle that assembly to work around the bracket. We also have to put the hood back on sometimes when we accidently bump it and the magnets lose their grip. Because of the hose position the bracket usually just rolls to the bottom of the lathe bed and the hood is still in reach. I guess that could be considered a convenience when it gets in the way.
If we were doing more different lathe projects this hood might not be the right choice, but for turning pens it works well and is only minimally inconvenient
Allows instant mounting and positioning along the length of any MINI or MIDI lathe made of iron The hood has a 6-by-9-inch clear opening It is ideal ...More at Amazon
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