I have had the opportunity to ‘play’ with a lot of different cabinet / panel saws (I have no experience of site saws / desktop saws / hobby grade saws, just industrial, or old iron saws) through restoring them which I now do as a hobby. I can honestly say, that every single saw I’ve come across is absolutely terrible for dust collection. My own saw which is a SCM with a 7.5KW motor basically fires the saw dust at me horizontally from the top of the blade when using it in anger. It has a very good dust scoop enclosing the blade below decks with a large extractor pulling on it. It also has an overhead crown guard extractor. However, no amount of suction will stop me having a saw dust shower!
Ive seen a lot of different solutions that have been applied to Wadkin AGS10’s, I’ve restored a good number! Fully enclosing the cabinet seems to be popular, the suction is improved by blocking off the gap around the rise and fall handle using a soft rubber gasket. I’ve also seen sealant applied to all seams / gaps to stop air flow coming from where you don’t want it. To be effective though, you cant have an insert plate with zero clearance as not enough air can get in to allow air flow. However, they were all terrible, a lot of effort for little reward.
In all honesty, the best solution I’ve seen is a nice wooden lift out box in the bottom to catch the saw dust to make cleaning up quicker and easier.
As an aside, saws with dust collection gubbins attached with consequently lots of holes in the cabinet sell secondhand for a lot less than unadulterated models........so please encourage dust collection to be fitted........I always remove it and repair the holes by welding them back up.
