Dust control in your shop is important, both from a safety aspect and a keeping things clean angle. That is why I finally bought this Dust Deputy 2.5 for the shop.
Traditionally, I just hooked up my shop vac to whatever tool I was using, and made do with that. The results were the inevitable clogged up bags and filters, along with reduced efficiency.
With lots of projects to get done, I knew that I was going to be making a mess and generating a ton of dust and shavings and wanted something more efficient. My solution for keeping the mess as contained as possible without any frustration or putting in a whole shop system was getting a 5 gallon dust collector from Oneida Air Systems.
Dust Deputy 2.5 Dust Collector
Unboxing and Assembly
Like most things these days, some assembly was required for my Dust Deputy. Overall the instructions were clear and the assembly was about as straight forward as one could hope.
The quality of the plastic seems pretty reasonable and overall the plastic felt durable enough to put up with at least a few years of abuse around the shop.
Dust Deputy 2.5 Review Video
Dust Deputy Review After Use
If you watched the video, I tested out my Dust Deputy on the hardest thing I could think of to separate out, paint. At some point in his past, someone had painted the back windows in Leif the Adventure Van with black paint. I wanted that to be gone, but didn’t want to leave a big mess of black paint dust everywhere. So I tested out the dust deputy on that.
My only real mistake here was that I had also bought a new shop vacuum at the same time and got a slightly undersized unit. The Vacmaster Red Edition VOC508S 1101 that I picked up only pulls about 80CFM and my later research indicated that a vacuum with 150+ would have been ideal. If I was going to do it again, I would pick up something along the lines of the VacMaster Beast (Amazon Link) that would move more air.
That being said, I’ve had my undersized vacuum attached to the Dust Deputy for several months now and while the vac doesn’t move enough air, the Dust Deputy does a fantastic job of gathering up all the dust and shavings.
The First and Hardest Test
As I mentioned, sucking up the black dust from scraping paint off my van’s windows was the first test for this dust collection system.
I hooked it all up and got to working and checked on it after doing the back two windows. I was suitably impressed by the results.
The Dust Deputy had managed to collect virtually all the VERY fine black paint dust. The filter on the shop vac was almost perfectly clean and there was only the slightest hint of any black on the filter.
Since this test, I’ve used it when running my table saw and when sanding and the results have been pretty much the same. Only a little bit of the finest dust gets through to the vacuum’s filter. The rest is all neatly collected in the Dust Deputy.
Overall, I’d give it a 5-star rating on function.
What I Don’t Like About The Dust Deputy
My primary complaint about using the dust deputy is that it is tall and prone to tipping over. The caster feet on the bucket help, but the whole thing is a bit light, and if you are moving the hose around much, it will pull it over.
I don’t remember where I found it, but someone had posted a picture of this cart for your shop vac and dust collector, so building something along these lines is on the list of things to do. I’m pretty sure this would eliminate a lot of the tipping issues and make moving the pair around together much easier.
Would I Recommend Getting A Dust Deputy?
The short answer to this is yes. If you are wanting a way to keep the dust down in your shop without spending a ton of money on a stationary whole-shop unit, then this is an affordable solution. As stated, I would suggest hooking this up to as big of a vacuum as you can. I don’t think it affect the Dust Deputy’s performance any, but it will make collecting dust from the environment easier.
