dust collection News & Reviews

A Seriously High-Buck LED Worklamp – ToolMonger Festool is known for making high quality and high priced power tools, and ToolMonger also found that they make really high priced portable LED work lights. The Festool SysLite powers a total of six 3-watt LEDs that are said to produce a clear white light capable of brightening an entire room. It has an internal rechargeable battery, but it can also be plugged into the wall for extended use.

There have been huge safety changes to power tools over these last few years by manufacturers, fueled by consumer demands to cut down on harmful dust particles. Manufacturers are coming out with great new dust extraction advancements each year, but the hand tool category has remained completely untouched. But that has all changed with the introduction of the Veritas hand plane dust extraction shroud.

So now that you have entered to win some woodworking tools from Powermatic, your next step is to enter to win some goodies from their sister company Jet; Walter Meier must be in a giving mood. Up for grabs in the Jet sweepstakes is a 16-32 Plus Drum sander that can quickly sand smooth the surface of your materials, and a Vortex Cone Duct Collector to make sure all that dust from the drum sander has a place to go. The prize package is valued at $2,182.

Dust collection systems, attachments and accessories always seem to be popular at the World of Concrete trade show. With concrete being the main ingredient of the show, there is bound to be a fair amount of concrete dust, so it is only obvious to showcase tools that help clean it up. Bosch has come out with a number of new DC products that are sure to be welcomed by the people that would normally have to work in a cloud of dust.

Back in the late 90's you could not turn on the TV without seeing a commercial for a household vacuum that offered dual-cyclonic action. These commercials taught us that a vacuum with one cyclone was great, but one with dual cyclones is even better. The Dust Deputy videos have shown us how well their cyclone kits work on shop dust, so imagine what two more cyclones could do.

If you are a serious woodworker or even an avid amateur, you probably have some form of dust collection for your shop tools. We all know that dust in the lungs is a bad thing, especially if the dust is from manufactured or composite woods. Dust collectors are good at keeping dust levels down in the workplace, except for when you need to clean them out. Those filters get blocked up with so much loose dust that when you remove them, the dust goes everywhere. You almost need an extra dust collector running when clean out your dust collector....

Festool posted a teaser video on youtube of their new CXS Ultra Compact Cordless Lithium-ion Drill. The drill is expected to be released this May (the month of my birth *hint hint*) and will be powered by a 10.8 volt 1.3Ah battery that can be charged in 20 minutes. Festool didn't share very much in the way of specs, but the dill is already for sale in Europe and specs are probably the same. The CXS has a 2-speed transmission that gives us speeds at 0-400/0-1200 RPMs. The drill can be purchased as a standalone kit with a hex...

Last week we saw a little about the latest dust extraction accessories Makita announced at WOC, and today I have some more information from a new press release to share. New Dustless Hammer Attachment (193472-7) The new dustless hammer attachment works with Makita SDS-PLUS corded and cordless rotary hammers. It features a 17" hose, telescoping spring-loaded barrel, depth stop, bit size adjustment knobs and a built-in ruler. World of Concrete attendees tried out Makita's new attachment and discovered several advantages versus competitive built-on systems, including better tool performance (competitor built-on vacuum motors...

I usually don't have much coverage on concrete tools because I don't use them much in my line of work, and know very little about them. But for those of you in the concrete industry, or those just interested in tools news, you probably want to check out the official Makita World of Concrete press release that covers a few of their latest demolition and dust collection creations. La Mirada, CA Makita joined nearly 50,000 concrete contractors and dealers under brilliant sunny skies in Las Vegas for four days of hammering, surfacing and drilling...

Flexible coil tubes are nothing new; we use them for everything from air ducting, to pool hoses, but the BlueTube borrows from the classic design and takes it to the next level. Typical hoses use some type of coil skeleton that is either molded into the tube, or covered by some type of material to create the tube. The flaw in this inner coil design is all the lumps and bumps that the coil skeleton creates along the full length of the hose. These bumps are places for dust to get trapped and causes air turbulence...