Today I just hooked my blade guard dust port to my DC and removed the shop vac that had been collecting dust for the overhead portion for the dust collection. ?This is a temporary situation and I am considering dropping $500 to $1K for a grizzly or Harvey shark. ?So my question is what should I expect to be the biggest benefit? ?Better dust collection, better visibility and safety, more convenience, or all of the above? ?Currently I have only one bolt for the angle iron, so if I have a wider piece I will be able to loosen the bolt and rotate it away pretty quickly. ?Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated about the relative benefits and improvements that I should expect. ?Thanks, ?Mike

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Mike

Mike,

Thank you and that is helpful. ?Will likely get the Harvey but just want to make sure my expectations were in line with the improvements. ?Appreciated!

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Mike Hopkins

I have the Harvey Shark mounted to my K3 Winner 79x48.? It was expensive, however the quality is there, in my opinion.? This thing is solid!? It is also very adjustable, which I guess is good and bad.

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It works fairly well, although I think some of the performance would be better if it wasn't for how my dust collection pipe is routed (it's awkward due to space limits in my basement shop).? Their setup goes from a 4" inlet down to a 3" pipe, down to a slightly smaller hose, and then down to the narrow guard housing, so that might also play a role as well.

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I mounted it by screwing a block of wood to the back of the rightmost (i.e. small) extension table, and then attaching the support arm underneath that.? It has its own foot, so that helps deal with the weight of the unit.? I love the fact that I can just push material right into it and it just goes up on its own and stays there.? I also love the fact that I can leave my riving knife mounted all the time.? Note that the riving knife that comes with the saw that holds the default guard *cannot* (or maybe should not) be used with an overarm mount, as I believe the top of that is thicker than the rest of the knife.? You'd have to double-check though; I bought a new "standard-style" riving knife when I got the Harvey Shark.

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The biggest drawback is that in order to swing it out of the way you have to walk around the saw; there is no quick release-type concept.? And with my tight setup it's actually even more difficult to reach the lever so that makes it even harder.? You might not have that limitation.

Thanks for the comments. ?Previously I had an Excalibur telescopic blade guard with a Unisaw and hated it. ?By itself it was fine, but it could not swing or pivot out of the way. ?I had an aluminum router table built into the Unisaw side table and the Excalibur guard made it essentially inoperable since nothing was working together neatly.?

Anyway, ?I will likely get it and if you have any pitctures of how you attached it that would be great.

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Thanks,

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Mike Hopkins

Berwyn, PA

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Mike

Here's a crop of a picture that shows some details; I can get you more in-depth pictures if you need them.? Anyway, you can see the wooden block just under the fence there, and the Harvey Shark base connected under that (above the Festool Systainer).? Barely visible on the left is the hose that connects from the DC; the splitter for it is the tapered pipe just below the blast gate.? You can also see my DC tucked in on the left.

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Looks great. ?Thanks!

Mike

Mike, I bought 1999 C3-31 and soon discovered a host of flaws; that dinky little guard, a rip fence that wouldn’t lock down, and a miter gauge that rattled around. Really lame design effort on those items.

For the guard I adapted the SawStop upgrade fence which is a lot less money and time but nowhere near as nice as what you are looking at. For that you need a new and custom riving knife which I drew up and emailed to SendCutSend and they sent back the knife. About $25 for the knife. I can send the file if you are interested.

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Something I don’t understand, there is very little dust coming off my blade, so I never hooked up the DC to it. Might be because I don’t run a lot of sheet goods production style and never MDF type materials.

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You might consider also imbedding a couple magnets into the back of the riving knife if your block rattles around loose as soon as you back off the nut like mine did, and I love the knob but that might be a bit wacky for some people. Sure is convenient though.

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My other modifications are a Unifence with a DRO and an Osborne miter gauge that’s been further modified with some 80/20.

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I had that SawStop guard on my Ridgid Contractor's Saw back before I got the slider.? It worked pretty well; definitely better than the stock K3 guard and currently better than my Harvey Shark setup (which as I noted earlier is probably limited due to my DC setup).? You might not be getting much dust off the blade because it looks like you are running with the stock blade insert rather than a zero-clearance style.? There's little room for dust to go down into the cabinet with zero-clearance, but the overall benefits seem to outweigh that negative.

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At one point I mounted the SawStop guard to the stock K3 riving knife.? It was a hack, but it was possible.? One annoyance was how far it extends compared to the stock guard, although I guess the Harvey Shark unit is just as large (but a different style of course).? The other annoyance is that backing up the slider after making a cut would mean the piece on the slider would slam into the back of the guard's "wing" and either prevent / hinder the reverse movement of the slider or cause the entire guard to violently pop up.? Neither was acceptable for me, so I scrapped that plan fairly quickly.

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My riving knife is only *slightly* out of parallel, and I haven't really bothered to fix it since it does not appear to affect my results.? I have a 3D printer and printed that replacement block, however it didn't come out super clean for me so I have never bothered to try to use it.

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The only problem I do get with my riving knife is that one of the bolts that holds the mounting bracket in place will loosen over time, which results in the knife being wobbly.? When that happens I just have to go back in and tighten up that bolt (it's just behind the belt close to the blade arbor).? One of these days I will attempt to put some lock tight on that bolt... of course I've been telling myself that for years.