If you’ve got a router job coming up, you could just let the chips fly and vacuum them up later, but there’s a better way.
Bill Wells from Olympia, Wash., has modified his router to hook up with his shop vac so that he can suck up those chips as he’s routing the workpiece. This requires the kind of router base that has holes in it for an edge guide. In this case, our router has two 1/2-in. diameter guide holes. We’ve taken two 1/2-in. dowels and tapered the ends so they fit snugly into those holes. Attached to those dowels, we have a rectangular piece of scrap wood that we’ve cut a notch into to accept the nozzle from the vacuum. There’s also a loop of bungee cord that wraps around the notch to hold the vacuum nozzle in place. Between the router base and the nozzle is some hook-and-loop tape to keep the nozzle from advancing towards the router bit while in use.
Let’s see how this works. First I’ll run the router with the vacuum off; chips and dust go flying everywhere. With the vacuum on, the dust and chips are virtually nonexistent.
That’s a great tip, Bill. Thanks so much for sending it.
View Comments
Nice innovation, but may be a little bulky for most applications. The Onieda Co. makes a pretty good universal dust collecting router base that's not nearly as bulky and awkward as this home made one.