Alternative to Sweepy v2?

Can anyone suggest an alternative to the Sweepy v2? I’m on my 3rd one –

The first vibrated loose and ate itself.

The second vibrated loose and fell completely apart (both screws came all the way out) about 30 minutes into a job. I had learned my lesson after the first one and hit my new E-Stop button before it was damaged, so I reassembled it with a dab of Loctite blue on each screw. This worked great for about a week, but I just discovered that the Loctite had reacted with the Sweepy’s PC body and the tightening flanges disintegrated when I tried to snug it up a few minutes ago.

I have a third Sweepy, so I can keep going today, but after two months of ownership, I feel the Sweepy is my SO4’s Achilles heel…

Can anyone suggest a good alternative that would fit on the Shapeoko/Makita router?

An alternative to Loctite might be nylon nuts?
I feel the Sweepy overall is quite good, except for the clamping mechanism which is too prone to vibrating loose even after you’ve tightened the heck out of the bolts. The lock washers simply don’t hold well enough - this may simply be a function of the size of bolts. I have learned to check/re-tighten/keep an eye out for my Sweepy coming loose & so far I have not had a catastrophic failure. I was going to try Loctite, but hadn’t gotten around to it - now I’m wondering how/why the Sweepy body would react with it.

I saw this suggestion somewhere else, but can’t visualize how this would work. The two cap screws thread into the threaded ss barrel, so how would nylon nuts work? If I used longer cap screws, their extra length would prevent the cam mechanism from rotating as designed.

Look on etsy.com for Makita/C3D dust shoes. I bought a Sweepy 2 for my Dewalt but it is unuseable. Went back to etsy for a new one. Some use a foam like brush and they wear out fast. Stay with brush type. When the Sweepy works it is great but I could not keep it working.

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A small piece of leather works good. Small hole causes friction on the screw, leather causes a spongy surface to cause tension.

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While leather or a fiber washer will help, the lock washers included on current units should allow one to tighten enough so that things stay secure, and the Sweepy can be removed/replaced — it doesn’t need to be cranked down, just tightened enough so that it can be easily opened/closed, and when open can move up/down and be removed, and when closed will hold securely enough to stay in place, but not be so tight that the plastic is stressed.

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Just tight enough so that it can easily vibrate loose. :wink: Mine’s come loose several times too.

As an alternative to Loctite, try CA glue or epoxy.

A drop of nail polish works great too.

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