Dust Collection for a Dewalt Miter Saw

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I picked up a Dewalt DW715 12-Inch Compound Miter saw during a Black Friday sale. I’ve been doing some furniture building and figured it would come in handy.

See that little bag on the back? That’s ostensibly for dust collection. I may have been expecting too much out of it, but after my first dozen or so cuts on a set of 2x4s I went to empty the bag and there wasn’t anything in it. There was plenty of dust in the air and around the saw, though. So I decided to just hook up my shop vac to the dust port. Should be easy, right?

I did a little bit of Googling and found a woodworkers’ forum where someone said the dust collection port was 1.5″, so a 1.5″ vacuum hose should work. Well my shop vac has a 2.5″ hose so I just bought this without really paying attention to the description. Key bit: Use 1 1/2-inch hose with 2 1/2-inch accessories.

Not exactly what I was looking for... — Not exactly what I was looking for…

So I go to the home improvement store and pick up a Shop-vac 2-1/2″ to 1-1/4″ Conversion Unit. You might notice that it’s a 1.25″ adapter, not a 1.5″ adapter. Apparently, those are not made, but I figure it may fit the inside diameter of the Dewalt port. While I’m there, I also pick up a Shop-vac Universal Tool Adapter, because, hey, “Universal.”

So here’s the 1.25″ adapter:

Yeah….that’s not gonna work.

And here’s the “Universal” adapter:

Universal….between shop-vac brand accessories.

Same problem, but different.

So now I’m getting a little bit frustrated. The next time I go to the store (we were doing a bathroom remodel so I was at Lowe’s or Home Depot like every 6 hours for a month), I pick up a 1.5-Inch Contractor Hose I’ll spare you the suspense and tell you now–that didn’t work either. The inside diameter of the hose was not large enough to fit over the dust port, and the outside diameter of the hose was too large to reliably use a coupler.

At this point I’m just trying shit. Clearly it’s not a 1.5″ port. Or 1.5″ hoses aren’t 1.5″ ID or OD.

I go order a 1.25-Inch hose. The wand on the end is comically large, but it fits. Sort of:

The dust port is actually in the arm of the saw, so it rotates. When the saw is all the way up, the wand can fall back. When you go to use the saw again, this can happen:

So now I do what I should have done in the beginning:

Did I say inch and a half? I meant inch and twenty-one thirty-seconds. My bad.

And the inside diameter:

Or maybe I meant inch and three eighths.

I take my calipers to the store, go to the plumbing aisle, discover that 1.5″ PVC Pipe fittings have an inside diameter of about 1.66″ to accommodate wall thickness. I buy a 1.25″ Schedule 40 male adapter, a 1.5″ x 1.25″ male adapter, and a 1.25″ slip coupler. I figure I can use one of my hoses with the male adapters, and just use some 1.25″ PVC pipe if I really need to.

Well. It turns out…

If you take the wand off the 1.25-Inch hose, the end of the hose fits perfectly in the 1.25″ slip coupler.*

This is not the wand you're looking for. — This is not the wand you’re looking for.

The corrugated end even fits over the ridge in the middle to keep it in place!

And voila!

And the good news, of course, is that I’ll never need another adapter again. I already have them all.

*The original version of this post incorrectly stated that a 1.5″ coupler was used. This is what I get for hitting publish before checking my receipts.

Comments

22 responses to “Dust Collection for a Dewalt Miter Saw”

February 20, 2014

Lazy Bike Commuter

I think I would have ended up using the 1.25″ adapter, shimming it with duct tape.

Reply
February 20, 2014

ChrisJ

The next time you run into something like that check out Woodcraft.

http://www.woodcraft.com

They should have everything you need for dust collection.

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1. February 20, 2014
  
  wizardpc
  
  I’m fortunate enough to have one of their retail stores close enough to drop by on my lunch hour. Sadly, Woodcraft doesn’t carry anything that will connect to a port that small.
  
  Reply
  1. February 20, 2014
    
    ChrisJ
    
    Who’d have thunk it? I just assumed they’d have something.
    
    I just use my floor for dust collection…
    
    Reply
February 22, 2014

jon spencer

If your shop-vac has a exhaust port that fits a hose and your shop has a exterior wall.
Run a hose from that port to a through the wall fitting.
The larger pieces sucked into the vacuum will be in the can and the fine dust will go outside.

Reply
March 29, 2014

Lane

Wow, so glad I found this. I just bought this saw, and was just about to repeat the exact exercise you did.

Thanks for taking the time to write this up. I am grateful.

Reply
July 17, 2014

David

Have you looked at either of these?

DEWALT D279053 1-1/2-Inch O.D. to 2-1/4-Inch O.D. Tool Adapter

Or

DEWALT DWV9140 2-1/4-Inch OD Adapter

One thing I noticed… when I was testing the 1 1/4 coupler in the store.. the display was a type 2 model.. and it fit very loose. But when I brought it home to my type 3 it was snug as a bug! I did have to put electrical tape around the hose to make it fit in snug.. that part was loose for me.

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January 28, 2015

Alan

Thanks for this. Being naive, I made the mistake of buying the universal adaptor also . I solved the problem differently though. I took the dust bag provided (that does nothing) apart so that I could use the plastic piece that connects to the saw. Also, used a couple pieces of pvc left over from a plumbing project. Some electrical tape so it is all black and looks pretty. Works perfectly for no additional cost. Tomorrow, I will return the universal adaptor.

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January 23, 2016

Tom

I have this saw. Really appreciate you making this information available

Reply
February 21, 2016

Allen L

Thank you for writing this. I also gathered a large collection adapters for my Dewalt miter saw and nothing worked. I went and bought the 1.25″ coupler and a Home Depot Buckethead 5 Gal vacuum. When I got home I found that the hose end of a HD Buckethead slides right into the vacuum port on the saw and even snaps into place thanks to a widened ring around the hose end. This works better for me because I can quickly slide it out and use 1.25″ vacuum accessories to clean up the area. That being said, your system will work best for a standard 1.25″ hose but I wanted to point out that the current (2/21/16) Buckethead works great too.

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March 1, 2016

DRLeisy

Very interesting right up! I have gone through almost the same thing so I have a DWS 779, which is the 12 inch slider. I believe the end of the port tube is the same as what you have. It must be because of the pain in the foot. I’m interested to know how all of this works out for you because once I got hooked up and I turned on my vacuum the wimpy little rubber flanges near the blade just sucked into the hole. Apparently my shop vac by rigid is three or four times too powerful to work properly with the saw. Very frustrating.

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May 7, 2016

Jacob

haha.. I was midway through this exercise but instead of making another trip to Home Depot, figured I’d look it up. Thanks so much for posting this!

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June 24, 2016

Marcus F

I need a dust collection hose for my DW621 router. Does the dust extraction hose on your website fit all DeWalt power tools, ie. Saw, Router, Band saw, etc or does each power tool need a different diameter hose? I’m guessing the former but it pays to make sure.

Reply
August 15, 2016

Michael

I had some time to wander my local hardware store trying to adapt the 1 7/8 OD hose of my Rigid vac to thw 1 11/16 OD Dewalt port of the 12″ mitre saw. I settled on a 1.5 to 1.25 femco reducer. Clamps right onto the saw, and friction-fits nicely with the vac hose.

Reply
September 6, 2016

Ray

Now, how can we rig the shop vac to turn on when the saw is turned on??? On a flooring job, turning on a shop vac on every time you need a cutoff is time consuming and a PIA.

Reply
1. September 18, 2016
  
  Neo
  
  Just get an auto power switch. You plug in the saw to the switch and then the switch to the wall.. it sense current and turn son the accessory plug > your vac. It even leaves it on for a few seconds longer to clear the line. ~$22 bucks… worth every penny.
  
  Reply
March 2, 2017

RB

I’m looking for a similar remedy for my miter saw… Glad you came up with a solution for yours. I must be missing something obvious here, so perhaps you can spell it out for me: if you have a 1.25″ hose connected to your saw, isn’t there still the problem of connecting that 1.25″ hose to your shop vac, which accommodates a 2.5″ hose?

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September 5, 2017

Fitz

Nicely done! I wonder since you can hit PVC with a heat gun then bend it, possibly you could do the same with the end of one of these adapters: heat it up then jam something in there to expand the piece to the desired size, or use a band clamp to make it slightly smaller.

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March 4, 2018

john S.

EXCELLENT!! SOOOOOooooo,… i’ve bin a cabnet maker / do it your-selfer for over 40 yrs…and i STILL MAKE 30 TRIPS TO LOWES/HOME DEPOT for “acclaimed” “projects” ..my dear and wonderful “mate” of 45 yrs seems to just “have to have”…currently working on upstairs bath room…shower/toity ect ect…hand towel racks..fittings..cuboards..tubs..sheesh!! you name it..it’s up there man!! so dont feel like your by yourself wen you “live at lowes” (they know me by first name basis at two local ones)i do it ALL THE TIME!!! rule one..dont get married…rule two..dont buy any tools..(except im in love with the dam things…both..women AND tools) rule three..dont answer your telephone..cuz it’s more than likely one of your “friends” who dosen’t have a shittin tool..and they KNOW you have one….to borrow??(never come back..well..almost never) …keep the faith my friend!!! jSm…

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July 31, 2018

Jay H

Fitz, I ran into a similar situation trying to couple a cyclone to my shop vac for use with a sandblast cabinet. You most definitely can heat up PVC fittings with a heat gun and force them onto something just a little too big. Maybe three minutes with the heat gun ought to do it. Be careful; it’ll be hotter than you’d think.

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December 25, 2018

Dustysa4

In your 3rd image, with the adapter loosely hanging from the dust port, you can see a groove about an inch from the end of the port. That’s designed to be used with the DeWalt DWV9000 Universal Connector. The “vacuum end” of the DWV9000 will thread on to smaller hoses, like the orange accessory hose sold by Ridgid. Or if you prefer, you can thread it on to the DWV9190, which adapts it to fit a standard 2.5″ wet/dry vac hose. DeWalt has built a spiffy quick release vacuum adapter line around the Universal Connector, selling adapters for some of the more common dust port sizes for it. There is a twist lock on the “tool end” of the Universal Connector that locks/unlocks the adapters in place. They even sell a 1.25″ adapter, so you can still use your common household attachments. I drive myself insane trying to find proper dust port solutions. Many times there isn’t one because manufacturers don’t adhere to a standard, or simply want to sell you a $50 hose that fits only their dust extractor (grrr!). But kudos to DeWalt for making a system that works with so many other brands. Wish they’d market it’s purpose better.

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July 4, 2020

John C

You basically just told my personal story. All the way down to that pile of fittings at the end. Thank you!

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