Welcome to the Early Bob Period

The dust collection on our shop’s cabinet saw sucks. Let me re-phrase that. It doesn’t suck. Zero suckage. Two holes. Tons of waiting.

We have a big cyclone dust-collection system. We have our cabinet saw hooked up at its base and in the basket guard. Still the dust tends to build up in the cabinet. (Note: It hasn’t ever gotten as bad as when Glen D. Huey turned on his Unisaw and the blade wouldn’t move because the dust had collected up to the arbor, stopping the motor.)

Still, all of us are careful to never lose the arbor nut when we change the blade on the saw. If you drop the nut, you can count on about an hour of digging through the cabinet to look for your lost nut.

So today, I lost my nut.

So I opened the bottom of the cabinet saw and laughed out loud. The sawdust had packed up so tight that it looked like a sand sculpture or layers at an archaeological dig.

So I took a photo.

If you look close, you can see all of the projects we’ve worked on since the last time someone dropped a nut. At the top is mostly maple from Executive Editor Robert Lang’s latest project. Below that is Senior Editor Glen D. Huey’s lowboy in 200-year-old mahogany. Then you can see the walnut from my White Water Shaker Side Table. And below that is a lot of unidentified light-colored wood that no one will fess up to.

I call that the Early Bob Period.

Almost an hour later, I hadn’t found the nut until Managing Editor Megan Fitzpatrick suggested a very big magnet that Huey had. That found the nut in 20 seconds flat.

Somewhere in the Early Bob Period.

– Christopher Schwarz

Ways to Avoid this Dust Collection Problem

– “Setting Up Shop: Completely Revised And Updated” by Sandor Nagyszalanczy

– “The Complete Woodshop Guide” (Popular Woodworking Books)

– “Woodshop Dust Control” (Taunton) by Sandor Nagyszalanczy