Festool my journey and where I am today

[mbcabinetmaker]

I have an an opportunity to pick up a like new Festool CT-46-E dust collector for $300.00 bucks. Can someone give a clue if this unit would suffice for limited use with SS equipment?? Right now I am using a Craftsman shop vac.

Don G

I assume it is a CT48E. It will work fantastic on your Shopsmith provided you have a dedicated 20 amp service. Simply plug in the vac and plug your Shopsmith into the vac. I have that same set up and it works very well.

[dgreen810]

Mark

No it is a CT-36-E. https://www.festoolusa.com/products/dus ... t-36-e-usa. However comparing the specs. on both units it appears they are basically the same except for container size the CT-36 at 9.5 gal to the CT-48 at 12.7 gal. In any case if yours works OK I think I may spring for this one. I do have a question though. Have you had any trouble with the hose only being only 1 1/16"??? Seems pretty small.

Also where did you get the connecton to adapt from Festool hose to SS dust outlet???

Don G

[reible]

Festool sells several hose sizes, not cheap but you can get a larger one which might be a good idea if connecting to a shopsmith.

Ed

[claimdude]

Bosch antistatic hoses are available on Amazon and work just fine with the Festool vacs and tools. They generally run about 25% less than the Festool hoses. And Don is correct the 22, 36 and 48 have the same motor, suction etc just different bag sizes.

Jack

[Mike907]

Your Shopsmith hoses will plug right into the Festool vac. At least, mine do.

Mike

[sehast]

Here is a video on a track saw technique that may be of interest. Certainly not as sophisticated as Ed's quest but very interesting in its simplicity and frugalness.

http://www.finewoodworking.com/2016/06/ ... =137053490

[dgreen810]

update:
I did purchase the CT-36-E "HEPA" and a Bosch hose as suggested. In case someone else should go down this path I ran into the the following issues.

As someone suggested the Bosch hose indeed does fit the Festool inlet, however the other end does Not fit the dust ports on SS equipment. I believe there is an adapter from Bosch that will go from 2 1/4" male to the Bosch tool end, but I am not positive about that until Monday morning. In the meantime I made a adapter from a piece of Craftsman vac hose that will fit the inlet of the Festool CT-36-E. So I just reversed the hose so I could use the Bosch 2 1/4" end to tie into the SS dust ports. Also made a temporary attachment rack for the A.C. line.

Don G

[claimdude]

The Festool end can easily be put on the Bosch hose for attachment to the tool. The grey hose in the pic above is not ant-static but you all probably already knew that.

Jack

[Sazerac81]

I have an an opportunity to pick up a like new Festool CT-46-E dust collector for $300.00 bucks. Can someone give a clue if this unit would suffice for limited use with SS equipment?? Right now I am using a Craftsman shop vac.

Don G

I really hope you went for it Don! That is an exceptional deal that I would have definitely jumped on even with owning the CT-26 dust extractor already. Resale value on these units is pretty high so even if it didn't work for your purposes, you could have easily passed it on without a loss.

As for its ability to act as a dust collector/extractor for the SS, you'd likely want to use the larger 36 mm hose vs. the 27 mm hose to get greater CFMs. However, a high flow/low pressure system is more adequate for a lot of the shopsmith equipment, you would likely want to look at units that are able to deliver in excess of 300cfm to really capture dust appropriately on many of the shopsmith dust collector ports.

The CT extractors are great and excel for the intended purposes of using them on the festool portable/handheld power tools. They are not high flow/Low pressure dust collectors and are not designed with that purpose in mind. They are low flow/high pressure systems designed to extract/suck dust very efficiently and powerfully through smaller diameter hoses/ports.

Cheers,
John

[Sazerac81]

Haha, I just saw all the new posts, you got one hell of a deal for that extractor. Should work well for you for years to come.

As mentioned, you would ideally purchase a high flow/low pressure dust collector system to work with the SS vs. something like a festool dust extractor. It will work to a certain degree, but efficiency and dust collector would be greatly enhanced with another dust collector designed for high flow/low pressure ports/systems.