Festool saws, dust extraction, Henry and 100mm....

[Rob_Mc]

I have the TS55 and the Festool CTL Midi and the dust extraction is very good if cutting away from the edge of a board. However, even the TS55 puts a lot of dust into the air when just cleaning up the very edges of boards.

Another advantage of using a Festool extractor and hose setup with the TS55 is your system will eliminate the build up of static charge due to the use of conductive hoses and grounded hose outlets. This eliminates static shock potential and the build up of saw dust on the hose interior / exterior. A lot of shop vacs don't have this feature.

I also use the Festool cyclone separator on my CTL Midi extractor and I've never had to empty or replace the bag yet as the separator catches over 99% of the sawdust extracted before it hits the extractor bag.

 

[Rorschach]

Not really it’s both, the vac gets the dust but the filter bag and hepa filter stop anything escaping. So unless your Vac has both extra fine filters and enough “suck” you are going to have a dusty life.

Well that's why I said mostly. My henry has plenty of suck even with it's hepa filter and my parkside shop vac with dust deputy cyclone has incredible suction and filtration. I suspect either of them would do an excellent job when added to a Festool saw, the festool vacs are great I am sure but they are not miraculous.

 

[Ditch 08]

Buy yourself a 30litre by and a cyclone ...and connect that to Henry. I’ve jus done this to an old Tesco hoover...dust from bandsaw...totally negligent...nothing n the hoover bin....everything in the blue bin..brilliant.

Done basically the same, but used two buckets (one inside the other), after purchasing dust bags for the Henry (£10 wasted)

 

[Tanglefoot20]

Hi ditch....I reckon it’s the best way of sucking up all that dust...people tend to waste so much money on things that aren’t needed...my little bin works fine ..total for the lot...£60....vacuum was free

 

[ivan]

Buy yourself a Numatic Henry spare vac end hose commector and fit some new hose to it (google around for vac spares). I have a (36mm I think?) home made hose like this, with a festool (spares again) connector on the other end. Fits many other tools, with standard outlets (35mm I think) like the big 625 router, Mafell saws etc

 

[Hardy]

An interesting thread. I bought the TS-55 and MIDI 1 CTL extractor together, when Festool were having their cash back promotion last year. Although I did shudder at the cost even with the cash back, I have never, not for one moment regretted my decision. I mostly use the saw on my self made MFT and the dust extraction is first class. I did find some dust would appear out of the square opening at the blade, but solved this with a dust door from Feskit. I have had various shop vacs, Henry, Record Power before the Festool and the MIDI is far and away better than any of the others. I use the vac with adpaters from Feskit and the ones in this thread that I bought from Amazon, on various tools, from Bosch, DeWalt, Triton, Kreg, Ferrex, etc all with excellent results. Feskit make an adapter that allows me to couple the MIDI to my Henry hose for keeping the floor clean.

 

[Rorschach]

Are there any videos comparing the suction of the Festool to other vacs such as a Henry? While I am sure the festool is a very good bit of kit I would be very surprised if it was significantly more powerful than other vacs on the market, Festool engineers are clever but they are not miracle workers lol.

 

[pe2dave]

Get what you pay for @Rorschach ?
I'm not prepared to pay for the 'extra', only downside, I've to bodge the vac to TS55 connection.
With recent (swivelling) TS55 vac outlets, none of the adaptors which claim to fit, seem to,
or at least none I've seen.

 

[Rorschach]

Get what you pay for @Rorschach ?
I'm not prepared to pay for the 'extra', only downside, I've to bodge the vac to TS55 connection.
With recent (swivelling) TS55 vac outlets, none of the adaptors which claim to fit, seem to,
or at least none I've seen.

With almost all products there are diminishing returns as you go up the scale. I am sure a Festool sucks more than a Henry, but does it suck 4-5x more? I doubt it. Would be interesting to see.

As to the question of adaptors not fitting, I suspect you could fit a Festool hose end to a Henry hose maybe? Sure would be nice if manufacturers of power tools had some kind of standard fitting though.

 

[pe2dave]

As to the question of adaptors not fitting, I suspect you could fit a Festool hose end to a Henry hose maybe? Sure would be nice if manufacturers of power tools had some kind of standard fitting though.

Maybe being the operative word!
If only a standard were available. 3 sizes? Sanders, tracksaws etc, Chip - sized (planers).
How hard is that?

 

[Rorschach]

Maybe being the operative word!
If only a standard were available. 3 sizes? Sanders, tracksaws etc, Chip - sized (planers).
How hard is that?

The price you pay for having fancy kit, should have got a Parkside like me

 

[Dr W]

I have a Henry in the house and a CTL Midi ins the workshop, which I bought ~4-5 years ago on some mega discount deal. When the Festool arrived we told my young son it was Henry's Austrian cousin, 'Heinrich', so the name just stuck.
Always felt that Heinrich is an outstanding dust extractor but not great as a general purpose vac because the right angle bend where the hose joins the body gets jammed up too easily, even with quite small pieces of wood. Heinrich gets blocked on debris that Henry would swallow without so much as a cough.
The bags are very expensive, though I normally find I can use each one 2-3 times (carefully slit open at the end, empty contents into bin, then fold edges over and staple together) before the clogging of the pores affects the bag's efficiency.
Yes, the lack of standardisation in hose fittings is a PiTA. I ended up bodging all sorts of adapters using off-cuts of piping, hose and duct tape though now I have a 3d printer I will eventually get round to printing some proper ones.
For me though the biggest benefit of Heinrich, and the reason I'll always have space for him in my smallish workshop is the feed-through power switching. The fact that if I switch on my sander, table-saw, or whatever, the vac starts automatically, then stops a couple of seconds after I switch the tool off is just brilliant. Might not matter so much if you've using a tool that runs continuously but for stop-start operation it's great.

 

[chris.gid]

Get what you pay for @Rorschach ?
I'm not prepared to pay for the 'extra', only downside, I've to bodge the vac to TS55 connection.
With recent (swivelling) TS55 vac outlets, none of the adaptors which claim to fit, seem to,
or at least none I've seen.

I tried the festool end on the henry hose with no luck, slightly different size.
I found on the TS55 that if you remove the swivel enda standard hose end fits inside the port.
I also have a ETS EC150 which has a small dust port and ended up putting some duct tape on it to get a normal hose end over it.
I thought i'd give the cen-tec adapters a go and they are great. Fit perfectly on sealey 32mm hose (think the same size as henry hose) and the rubber ends fit the TS55 and ETS EC perfectly. The smaller adapter is also just fits all of my other tools and hoover attachments, well worth £15!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07NZ5N75S/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_PPYFM3HNBNXYNPG1MF88

 

[jimwillsher]

In the end I bought the CT15 to use with the mitre saw and the plunge saw, and the Henry has been repurposed to the garage

Many thanks everyone.

 

[mc281]

Hi all

I have a Festool TS 55 saw, which is brilliant saw but it doesn't half chuck out the dust!

I also have 1 high-flow Fox dust/chip extractor for my table saw, and I have a good old Henry vacuum cleaner

I'm looking to see if there is a way for me to leverage either the Henry or the Fox to connect to the Festool, as I can't really afford (cost or storage space) to get one of the lovely looking Festool dust extractors.


Can anyone suggest any adapters that I might be able to use? Ideally I'd like a way to connect the Henry hose to the Festool.

Many thanks.

First improvement is to fit a cover into the rectangular cut-out used for access to the blade bolt. They may be bought or 3D printed for pennies. You be could also just put some wide masking tape over the cut-out and at no cost. Stops a lot more 'dustage'.

 

[pe2dave]

Yet another case for someone to start up 3d printing hose matching 'couplers'.

 

[mc281]

Yet another case for someone to start up 3d printing hose matching 'couplers'.

Actually just another reason to try 3D printing and learn another skill. My printer has become a very useful tool.

 

[gmgmgm]

First improvement is to fit a cover into the rectangular cut-out used for access to the blade bolt. They may be bought or 3D printed for pennies. You be could also just put some wide masking tape over the cut-out and at no cost. Stops a lot more 'dustage'.

Concur - I've had some masking tape over this for years, works fine!

 

[Cabinetman]

Yet another case for someone to start up 3d printing hose matching 'couplers'.

And don’t forget vinyl flooring, easy to make up connectors even where the ends are very different sizes, tape along the joint but glue is best. This isn’t the best example but it’s the only pic I’ve got to hand.