Bandsaw dust collection - remove plate?

[Deadeye]

My Record Power BS350 has a 4" dust port and I have a HVLP sucking away via a cyclone.

The drive belt has broken, and while I've got the wheel off, should I remove the plat that mostly obscures the port? Or is it designed to try to spread the effect across the drive area rather than just hoovering out the bottom?

If it is sensible to remove, any advice on how? I don't think I can get at it with an angle grinder.
Or should I just drill a load of holes in it?

 

[Inspector]

I'm speculating but I think they put it there to keep people from putting their fingers through the hole from the outside. I'd get a hole saw and cut it out. Maybe bigger and fair the opening with auto body filler. Rotary files/burrs could grind off the welds too but would be a hard slog.

Pete

 

[Mikebart]

My Record Power BS350 has a 4" dust port and I have a HVLP sucking away via a cyclone.

The drive belt has broken, and while I've got the wheel off, should I remove the plat that mostly obscures the port? Or is it designed to try to spread the effect across the drive area rather than just hoovering out the bottom?
View attachment 168342
If it is sensible to remove, any advice on how? I don't think I can get at it with an angle grinder.
Or should I just drill a load of holes in it?

I would say it’s probably a poor design and that plate is holding the bandsaw together I have a sabre 350 and I haven’t looked to see if I have the same plate but the dust extraction is not very good anyway so I would suggest that the extraction port was an afterthought , more so if that plate is securely welded in place.
From memory there is a grill on the outside to stop fingers being poked into the moving parts.My saw also gathers all the dust in the same place and covers up that limit switch shown in the picture. So personal opinion I would leave it alone.

Just looked my sabre it has no plate and with plastic extraction port and it still has poor extraction so even if you removed / drilled holes in it, wouldn’t work any better.The extraction needs to be under the table to catch it before it ends up inside the machine and as I said probably a poor design.