I recently got a pro model 2x4 and wanted a custom dust shoe that was adjustable in Z and maintained good visibility of the work piece. I couldn’t find many that weren’t fixed to the spindle. This is what I came up with.
I’m a fan of Z independent dust boots. Yours is one of the more elegant designs, nicely done. I’m working on a redesign to work with my pneumatic lifter to work with the ATC. The challenge is having the lifted position constant, but the lowered position variable according to material height. Maybe springs will solve it.
I too am a fan of the independent shoe. Is it an optical illusion or why is the hole for the spindle larger than it needs to be? Seems that you would lose a lot of dust collection. Like the use of a linear rail to keep adjustment smooth.
The opening around the spindle is quite large because I was trying to maximize visibility. I haven’t tested a smaller one but I’m not having any issues with my dust collector. The spindle blows quite a bit of air down toward the work piece and I wonder if it actually helps.
I have since added a compressed air line that blows ~5psi at the endmill to aid in evacuating chips from deeper pockets. A smaller cut out on the shoe would prevent this from working for me.
I made my own, similar to some of yours. I just remodeled the one on avids site and added tabs. Then created a sliding rail system to adjust the height of the shoe depending on what I was cutting. With mine the dust shoe can be removed when making a tool change
Auto Dust Shoe set up its a test system and is being modified to create better suction. But first tests went well. It gets out of the way for tool changes and covers most tools well
That is a different angle on visibility in the dust shoe. I really like being able to see in the side of mine, but it doesn’t catch fast chips from bigger bits. I bet yours works a lot better for that.
You can get away with shorter bristles, and probably don’t even need a removable broom.