January 4, 2025
Description
Intro
When ordering my Workbee Z1+ I thought I'd save myself a bit of money and rather than buying the Ooznest dust shoe, I'd make one myself. Once I completed assembly of the Workbee, I ran a bed flattening job to see if the Workbee worked and how much dust it would produce. The damn thing covered the entire room in sawdust! (and I'm not exaggerating, I'm still finding dust in places two months later after several [admittedly half-arsed] goes with a hoover) But the bee worked. So I resolved to not touch the bastard again until I had a dust shoe for it. I've finally had some spare time over the holidays and so here is v0.1 of my dust shoe.
I've included some photos of the assembly process: hopefully they will illustrate the instructions below clearly enough.
Compatibility
This is compatible with the 43 mm Mafell/AMB mount ONLY! The dust shoe mount (supplied with the Workbee if the Mafell mount option is selected) is also required.
Version
v0.1 first working prototype, yay!
Parts/tools
You'll need the following:
Brush strip
The dust shoe is modeled around the dimensions of the particular brush strip I used. I don't know whether brush strip dimensions are standardized or not. In fact, I didn't know anything about brush strips until I needed one for this project.
The one I used is from https://zeroplus.co.uk/collections/brush-strips/products/flexible-brush-strip-seal-h-profile?variant=39501635584135 and most relevant dimensions can be found in the “catalogue” link on that page. The thickness of the top part (that goes into the circumferential slot in the dust shoe and for some reason is not shown in the datasheet) is about 2 mm and I used the “h”-profile variant with a 30 mm trim. There are quite a few hits when googling “flexible brush strip” but most of them appear to only sell it by the roll (at least in the UK, e.g. 25 m: you'll only need about 0.5 m). The link above is one I found where they sell it by the metre (so buy 1 m, you'll still have half of it left for a second dust shoe, or the first, in case you completely mangled it on the first attempt).
The design for the model is completely parametric so it's pretty much just a matter of me changing some numbers in a spreadsheet to produce an STL that will accommodate a brush strip with slightly different dimensions (within reason). If there is any sort of standard for brush strips that anyone knows of, I could be persuaded to produce an STL that should fit that standard…
Assembly
Print the three parts (I used PLA, 0.2 mm layer height). The main part needs supports (on bed only) for the flanges that will overlap with the clamp part (have a close look at the underside of the main part STL). The hose adapter fits my 38 mm dust extraction hose (see below for details): if you have a different diameter hose, don't print the adapter: you'll need to design your own.
Cut the brush strip to size (about 47.5 cm).
On a flat surface, align the main and clamp parts so they intermesh neatly. Note the overlap of the long side of the clamp part with the main part. While holding them together, start inserting the brush strip into the slot that runs along the circumference of both parts, starting at the end of the clamp part (near the overlap). Push the brush strip all the way in, as best you can (it will distort and stick out a bit at the rounded corners of the dust shoe). It is important to keep holding both printed parts meshed together while inserting the brush strip, especially at the back where the brush strip itself will act as a hinge and any slack would be bad news.
Note the six holes around the circumference of the dust shoe (there is a seventh one, where the main and clamp parts overlap; that one is dealt with later). These are where the M3x10 bolts will attach the brush strip to the dust shoe. You will need to drill holes into the brush strip rubber to allow bolts to go through. For each of the six holes: hold the main and clamp parts meshed together while pushing the brush strip all the way into the slot above where the bolt hole is, place the drill into the bolt hole from the outside, and carefully drill through the rubber (but no further). Remove rubber swarf from the inside using knife/tweezers, insert an M3x10 bolt through the outer hole, add an M3 nyloc nut to the inside, and tighten (this is where the tweezers come in handy again, especially on the short sides of the dust shoe).
Do not pre-drill all holes in the brush strip before inserting bolts. Drill one hole then insert and tighten the bolt/nut. Only then continue to the next hole. If you pre-drill, you may find that, after inserting a bolt, the next hole in the rubber is no longer exactly aligned with the hole in the dust shoe due to distortion of the brush strip (and therefore a previously drilled hole) as you were drilling the subsequent hole while pushing the brush strip down over the new hole.
For the seventh (last) hole (where the main and clamp parts overlap), drill through the rubber again as before. Note that the overlapping part of the clamp has a slot rather than a hole. You can drill carefully through the slot into the hole on the main part, or spread the two parts apart to allow drilling into the hole on the main part directly.
Thread an M3 nyloc nut onto the M3x30 bolt and tighten it against the head of the bolt. Then add the last M3 nyloc nut and tighten it against the previous nut (see photo). These two nuts should be very tight (they're not meant to come apart ever again) and their edges should be aligned.
Put the M3x30 bolt with the two nyloc nuts through the seventh hole on the inside of the circumference so that the bolt shaft pokes out through the slot on the outside of the clamp part. Both nyloc nuts should be inside the printed part and out of view. The M3 wing nut on the protruding end of the shaft completes the assembly. The wing nut is used to tighten the dust shoe around the dust shoe mount. A small amount of diameter tolerance is designed into the model: if the grip of the dust shoe on the mount is not tight enough, add a few sections of electrical tape (see photos) around the clamp inside diameter.
Finally, twist in the vacuum hose adapter. The adapter here fits a 38 mm hose for my V-TUF Mini (e.g. https://www.powertoolworld.co.uk/v-tuf-vtm1-m-class-mini-15l-800w-dust-extractor-inc-accessories). If you have a different diameter hose, you'll need to design your own adapter: this should be a simple enough task.
Testing
I cut two slots for T-tracks into my spoilerboard. There was no visible dust emission during the cutting process (very much unlike when I was doing the bed flattening job before I had the dust shoe). After a minute or so, I took off the dust mask as there seemed no need for it. In short, it seems to work. There are some aspects of it I'm not quite happy about (mostly about how much vertical headroom is required by the brush strip rubber parts) and I may get around to re-visiting this if I get the time, but for now v0.1 seems to work well enough…
License:
Creative Commons — Attribution — Noncommercial — Share Alike
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