Being the creative I’ve decided to make my own shapeoko dust shoe - but I’m having difficulty finding the correct brush material? Many people are using what looks like a door draught excluder but in the UK these are made from metal, not plastic. Are people using something I’m not aware of?
Best,
Luke
I just use a piece of transparency film — draw up a template on an A4 sheet, take it to the local office supply shop and have them print it for you onto a single sheet — saves the expense of buying a pack: http://www.shapeoko.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1709&start=10
I was tempted by a plastic sheet idea - similar to that, but how well does it brush the material off?
The brush isn’t really for brushing up the dust. It’s primary function is to contain the chips and allow the vacuum to suck them up.
What it’s made of isn’t really that important as long as it contains the chips and vacuum without interfering with the cutting action.
Thanks, I know but I don’t want plastic bristles to get pulled in. I just ordered some from china…
Gene made the most unique dust show Mod Ive ever seen, a dust shoe out of a sponge, follow him on Instagram:
(I think everyone has one of these sponges in the garage, now I know what to use it for.)
The mans a genius - I might actually do that - it solves 2 issues - dust and adjustment.
I have my s3 back together. I’ve got plans to make a dust boot tomorrow 
Sponge at the ready!
Cheap polyester paintbrushes (say the 3" width) actually have several single rows of soft bristles. Cut off the metal ferrule that holds the bristle bunches to the handle and then split them out. My single cheap brush yielded three separate strips.
I bought reasonably priced strip brushes through eBay.
These look great on a finished dust boot, however I may convert over to the sponge idea. The problem with the brushes is that even through the bristles feel very soft and flexible, there are a lot of them and they can be rather stiff when making a deep vertical plunge into the workpiece. A couple of times they’ve caused the z-axis to slip a tooth when plunging into a large flat workpiece. This issue could be probably be resolved by angling the bristles outward so that they aren’t on axis when plunging. I’ll probably do this to my dust boot, but the sponge is such a simply and cost effective idea, I’m going to make one to give it a try. I attached the brush strips with magnets on my boot so its an easy swap.
I had my dust strip from China the other day - it was as described and works well on my home made boot.
Luke: Did you design your boot to mount to the router body or to the Z support?
Crikey, blast from the past… It mounted to the router body. Some might notice a similarity between designs from 2017/18 and the design and Sweepy…
That’s too bad. The issues associated with attaching it to the router body are what has kept me away from the Sweepy in the first place 
It’s so much nicer not to have to think about the depth of the piece, obstacles that might be in play if the bit is lower, or what will happen to the bristles on deep, narrow passes.