I have a planer/thicknesser that looks like the Metabo HC260C. I've seen many of these with different labels.
I'm thinking about the dust collection on this planer, and how it might be improved upon. I find the design a bit strange, and don't know if there's a reason to the design, or if it just happened to be easy to produce the dust collection attachment like this.
The dust extractor attachment is in two parts. One is permanently fixed to the planer (with the square opening). The other is placed on top of this when using the thicknesser (and this part is also used under the bed when using it in planer mode).
I'm attaching a few photos. Sorry for the un-focused photos - I used my mobile phone camera. Should have used my real camera instead.
A few points:
1. To begin with, it's just 100 mm (as is quite usual for consumer machines)
2. The 100 mm opening is virtually cut in half because there's a piece of plastic that covers almost half the opening.
3. The rectangular opening over the cutter gets more and more narrow before the dust needs to get past a corner before getting to
the round part where you connect the hose.
Is this just bad design? has anyone made any DIY improvements?
I'm thinking about cutting away the part that blocks half of the round section. But not sure if that would help much.
I'm also thinking of selling this planer and buying a better (more expensive) planer/thicknesser with proper dust extraction (and maybe a fence that is possible to set to 90 degrees, which this one is not - I've permanently fixed it to 89 degrees or so, which is as close as I can manage).
I'm thinking about the dust collection on this planer, and how it might be improved upon. I find the design a bit strange, and don't know if there's a reason to the design, or if it just happened to be easy to produce the dust collection attachment like this.
The dust extractor attachment is in two parts. One is permanently fixed to the planer (with the square opening). The other is placed on top of this when using the thicknesser (and this part is also used under the bed when using it in planer mode).
I'm attaching a few photos. Sorry for the un-focused photos - I used my mobile phone camera. Should have used my real camera instead.
A few points:
1. To begin with, it's just 100 mm (as is quite usual for consumer machines)
2. The 100 mm opening is virtually cut in half because there's a piece of plastic that covers almost half the opening.
3. The rectangular opening over the cutter gets more and more narrow before the dust needs to get past a corner before getting to
the round part where you connect the hose.
Is this just bad design? has anyone made any DIY improvements?
I'm thinking about cutting away the part that blocks half of the round section. But not sure if that would help much.
I'm also thinking of selling this planer and buying a better (more expensive) planer/thicknesser with proper dust extraction (and maybe a fence that is possible to set to 90 degrees, which this one is not - I've permanently fixed it to 89 degrees or so, which is as close as I can manage).