I melted some of the bristles on the Large Laguna CNC dust boot. I believe I have some of the same brush material at home I can bring up here, cut to size, and replace. If not, does anyone (@jamesfreeman@Maz@TravisGood) know what the part number is for the bristles? They look like the stuff McMaster sells, which is what (I think) I have at home.
This happened because of a couple of factors - let’s call them learning experiences:
My 2-inch thick, 22"x14" chunk of walnut was not perfectly flat, so the vacuum held great for most of the cut, until…
…I was trying to dial in my speeds and think i went a little too aggressive, so it ended up pushing the walnut block around since it wasn’t perfectly held down. This caused the part to drag the bristles up under the collet and melt them.
TL;DR I melted the bristles, I’ll fix it. I may just need to know the part number so I can pay for some new bristles.
I’m not sure of a part number, or even the brand of the boot, as they were provided with the machine. If you have some at home you think would work, that would be great.
This is a great example of things we’ll be looking for in the beginning uses of the machines. Didn’t even consider replacement bristles.
This is what I have. Looks like the same stuff but the bristles are 6” on this, so way too long. Only place I can find anything about the Laguna dust shoe is on Woodcraft but they don’t say how long the bristles are.
Anyone around the shop who can measure them? I’ll put it an order on McMaster.
We should definitely figure out a good place for reordering this in the future so we have the info on hand next time we need it! Those bristles that came with it do indeed look excessively long.
My assumption is it’s going to be something like this from McMaster-Carr but I’ll need to get some measurements of the backing (where the brushes get clamped to the dust shoe), what length we want the bristles to be, and how much we need to replace all the brushes.
Bristle length was ok for me today but i cut 3/4 inch thick stuff with a long bit. Def would be too long for shorter depths but it didn’t look easily changeable.
Amazon has lots of CNC brush material. And we can purchase various lengths. Does the inside of our shoe look like this one? 70mm and 100mm seem to be common length options.
No, it has little clamps that grab onto a metal backing strip like the McMaster kind I posted. I’ll be bringing the brush I have at home up to the space this evening to see if I can trim the bristles to length and if it’s the right backing size.
Can confirm, the stuff I linked from McMaster is the right stuff. One on the left is the original, one on the right is my comically long bristled one cut to size.
In my personal experience, I like a slightly longer length. When I surface materials the bit tends to stick out of the router farther, and I need the slight drag of the bristles to help contain the mess. I know this isn’t everyone’s case. I imagine at some point we made keep multiple boots on hand to accommodate different setups. I also imagine the IQ would be more likely better served with shorter bristles.
I’ll order the same length (2in). The bristles actually seem ok right now, just slightly melted, so I can just leave the new one somewhere for when it really needs to be replaced down the road? Let me know if you’d rather I just go ahead and install them and I’m happy to.
