In Lancaster, in the heart of the Pennsylvania Amish and Mennonite communities, woodworking is a major industry. Traditionally, the wood shop dust collector system of choice for these furniture and cabinet makers has been the baghouse. However, the CMAXX cartridge dust and fume collector can work just as well as a baghouse on many of these applications. We recently had an opportunity to work with one of our reps, Isaac Lapp from Lapp Millwright, to introduce the CMAXX to a cabinet maker to handle their wood dust. Fortunately, Isaac Lapp and our own Charlie Miller were able to work with this customer to help him design the system he needed.
“Our competitors were in there at the time telling them that a cartridge collector absolutely would not work,” Isaac says. “Charlie was able to show them that it would work, and now it’s there and working great.”
A CMAXX system can be the perfect solution for certain wood dust applications. The efforts of Charlie and Isaac convinced the customer to take the risk of trying a cartridge collector, and now they are very pleased that they did.
Part of putting the customer at ease about this decision was Charlie’s commitment to walking them through the process from the very early design phases to the end product. In this application, where the capture points are on saws, sanders, and routers, the wood dust is generally very fine. The customer has noted that the system has given them strong airflow on all of the capture points and maintained that airflow, meaning the cartridges are functioning exactly as they should.
For this customer, one of the strongest selling points for the cartridge collector over a baghouse was the size of the collector. A traditional round baghouse would have been nearly 60 feet high to suit the needs of this customer. The CMAXX footprint is very neat and efficient compared to a towering BRF.
This customer needed the wood shop dust collector to be set up so that trucks could drive underneath it. The extra height added by a baghouse would have been excessive. Despite the initial uncertainty about a cartridge collector, it was an option that kept the collector profile much smaller than a baghouse.
Since this customer has seen great success with the CMAXX collector, other customers are making the leap and putting our cartridge collectors on their wood applications. With a “foot in the door” with a cartridge collector at a brand new wood dust facility, others have been willing to take another look.
When one customer sees success with a product, others are more likely to follow, and Isaac reports that he’s getting a much better reception now when suggesting a CMAXX for applications.
Baghouses and cartridge collectors can both work well for woodworking dust collection, but many people are resistant to the idea of cartridge collectors working for wood. The truth is that for many wood shop dust collector applications, a cartridge collector works just as well, and it offers the option of a much smaller footprint, easier maintenance, and excellent efficiency.
Read more in our blog post: Selecting an Industrial Dust Collector for Woodworking?
