I was checking Lee Valley’s site, to see if there were any new tools of interest, and came across a steel plate adapter for their T-slot mini worksurface. There, they show a square dust chute mounted to the stainless steel mounting plate.
Hmm, a magnetic-bottomed dust chute? It caught my interest and so I dug in a little deeper.
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I’m not sure when it first came out, but Veritas offers a magnetic dust chute that works with 2-1/2″ vacuum hoses, and it comes with a 2-1/2″ to 1-1/4″ adapter so you can use it with smaller vacs. You should be able to attach standard adapters if you want to use other hose sizes, such as 4″ for use with a dust collector.
The dust chute has a 3″ x 3″ square opening, which I think should be enough for gobbling up chips and sawdust created by benchtop tools. It looks like it’s meant for use with unshrouded tools.
The bottom of the dust chute has 4 rare earth magnets, capable of delivering 40 pounds of holding force.
You can use it on a drill press table, lathe, scroll saw, or any other tool that has steel tables or surfaces.
The instructions also say that you could install 2 (or 4?) steel flat head screws into a wooden-topped workbench, as long as they’re placed to match the spacing of the magnets. Or I suppose you could embed a steel plate in your benchtop, although a few screws here and there, if you want to be able to move the chute around easily, will look a lot cleaner.
This seems like a handy and moveable way to bring dust collection to tools that don’t have any.
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Price: $34.50
Buy Now(via Lee Valley)
Lee Valley has another of their Free Shipping promos going on right now, on $40+ orders in the contiguous USA and Canada, good thru 8/30/2016.
fred
I see they (Lee Valley) is having one of their free shipping deals – but this is $5.50 short of the $40 minimum.
I saw that they also introduced a variable angle plane fence that is said to work with lots of Veritas planes – but also old Stanley Bailey planes (Maybe Lie Nielson too ??) – I may have to give it a try:
http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=74646&cat=51&ap=1
Stuart
Yep, I mentioned the Free Shipping promo at the end of the post. =)
That variable angle fence looks appealing. For some Veritas planes, the specific angle fence might be a better buy – http://www.leevalley.com/US/wood/page.aspx?p=73008&cat=1,230,41182 – because you don’t need to buy the fence and separate fasteners as with the universal fence.
fred
I guess I’m a sucker for plane fences. I bought their 05P30.01 in 2001, the 05P37.05 in 2005, the 05P30.04 in 2015 and the 05P30.06 last January. The appeal of this new one is that it may work with my non-Veritas planes. I’ll admit that I have more than enough planes (close to 200 – but some are more antiques than working tools) but on occasion I’ve had 15 or 16 boy scouts all planing pieces at the same time – as a prelude to doing some relief wood carving using some donated rough wood. In that situation you can never have enough #4 bench planes, block planes, picnic tables (aka makeshift workbenches), or clamps to hold the work down.
Dale
Been using the magnetic shute for about 10 years so convenient
DAJ
THIS MIGHT BE OLD NEWS FOR SOME BUT NEW TO ME, WHEN YOU ARE
SETTING UP TEMPORARY, OR USING A SHOP VAC FOR DUST COLLECTION,
ALL OF THE FITTINGS FROM DIFFERENT SOURCES ARE OFF -JUST ENOUGH TO PISS YOU OFF – I HAVE FOUND THAT IF YOU USE A HEAT GUN AND HEAT UP THE FEMALE END EITHER PLASTIC OR RUBBER THEY CAN BE COAXED INTO A TIGHT CONNECTION, IF LEFT TO COOL DOWN THEY WILL RETAIN THAT NEW SHAPE, I HAVEN’T NEEDED A HOSE CLAMP EITHER.
Stuart
Please don’t use all-caps.