Shopsmith Forums

I just bought a 2-1/2" universal dust port to add to my cast iron table band saw. Is there a recommended way to drill the hole for it in the 30 year old hard plastic cover? I don't want to just throw a hole saw at it and end up cracking it. Any special tips? Thanks!

-Steve

Hole saw.

Securely backed up.

Go slow.

Hand held or drill press????

Either way 'carefully'.

Hi and welcome to the forum!

I did my hole using the shopsmith with the speed reducer. If you don't have that then you might be better off with a hand drill. As JPG said make sure you support it while drilling, easier when drilled from the inside of the cover and the backer on the outside.

Since you have an older bandsaw you might find this tread of interest. It shows a bunch of mods you can make like the dust port, a window for blade tension etc.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ss_forum/maint ... t8361.html

Ed

I did something similar .. got a new cover with a 2 1/2 inch port already in it, but enlarged it to accept a four inch port for my DC. I used a hand held sroll saw, disconnected the blade on one end, inserted into the hole and re-connected, then made the cut from a previous marked line. Cut slightly inside the line then used a drill with a sanding tube attached to smooth it to the line. Worked great, attached a port to the hole for my DC, no problems. Thinking you could drill a small hole and do much the same thing. But you might consider a four inch port, 2 1/2 didn't seem to do much for me

Thanks everyone! I just used a hole saw in my cordless drill and everything went well.

Now, I'm thinking about adding the blade tension window!

-Steve