Kent Dust Shoe Attachment

[curtin_cnc]

Whenever sizing the proper Kent Dust Shoe, do I want it clamped to the lower, smaller diameter portion or the slightly larger diameter section? Picture is attached. I have not become operational yet, so I apologize if this is a blatantly obvious answer once I would know the functionality of the collets, etc.

[guitarwes]

Good to see another steel Panther owner. Do you have the ATC? If so, the factory dust boot works great. If not, you'll want to enclose the entire bottom end of the spindle for maximum efficiency.

[Jim Becker]

The Kent Shoe is designed such that you "can" move it up and down to adapt to tooling length, so it would normally be on the longer section of the spindle. Adjusting height is cumbersome, however, and you have to be really careful not to over-tighten the screw that tightens the device to the spindle. So I have mine at an average height for most of the tooling I use and am considering getting at least one of the half-inch thick "extensions" to lower the hula skirt when I bring out the big, bad, long .375" tooling I use for some kinds of processes.

That said, your shoe looks different than mine...

[curtin_cnc]

The dust shoe on there right now is the stock one that is sent, so disregard that - I just placed it on there arbitrarily, but I was going to put the Kent shoe on before going full-fledged as I see from many users that it seems to be the ideal shoe for optimal collection. I do not have the ATC, so will be able to enclose all the way around. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t really have a longer part of the spindle - both of those sections are about 5/8” tall, so neither are really longer than the other. The smaller diameter is 3.35” and the larger diameter section right above is 3.54”, so was ultimately deciding which of those diameters to choose for my dust boot.

[Bruce Page]

KentCNC has a dropdown sizing list for their standard split shoe that you could use to compare the two spindle diameters to.
I have 3 of the Kent ½” plastic shim extensions. I use one quite often, two occasionally, never needed to use all three.

https://www.kentcnc.net/nc/standard-...dard-dust-shoe

[curtin_cnc]

My dilemma is that both of the diameters I listed in my previous reply are diameters that are available in a Kent Dust shoe, so I'm trying to decide if I'd optimally like the Kent dust shoe sized for the larger diameter, slightly higher up portion of my spindle, pictured in the image above, or on the smaller diameter, slightly lower portion of the spindle.

[TimPa]

i can't speak for the kent shoe. but i know that the model received from CAMster on our Panther, is generally short. more specifially, it is common that with most any long(er) bits, the bristles dont quite reach the board until the bit gets deeper into the cut, which allows a lot of chips to escape the dust collector at the beginning. just my experience...

maybe talk to them on the phone.

[DVE2000]

I have two shims, and an older brush that had been torn up that I converted into another shim. It's really nice having the bristles lower than the bit. Helps quite a bit. I also have the 2" brush, and it seems better to use that with shims when I use my 1.25" surfacing bit. Less bristles get chewed up.