Began ripping my cedar planks into strips today. It is Florida and it is 86 outside.
That said, I just fixed up my "new" vacuum system for my garage and it worked great with the bandsaw, almost no dust got out at all. Did I dump the 25 gallon dust holder that was mostly full now? Why of course NOT! Next up, let's play with my tablesaw I rebuilt last month. Why I have a vacuum system, I can rip western red cedar INSIDE my garage, no need to haul that saw outside like I normally do, afterall it worked great with the bandsaw.
Cut, cut, cut, rip, rip, rip. Whistle while you work. As anyone familiar with cedar knows, it likes to make lots and lots of very fine dust. I then noticed it was getting kind of hazy in the garage and it smelled REALLY GOOD! Yep, the filter on the vacuum had failed, thus blowing gallons and gallons of wonderous cedar dust all over my NEWLY CLEANED AND ORGANIZED GARAGE!!! I guess it had been doing it for awhile, but I hadn't noticed as I was son intent on making more sawdust. I had just spent 5 days getting everything cleaned and organized. I had thrown out 11 giant garbage bags of junk. I was so very, very proud of myself.
I now had 28 feet of nice, fine dust covering every square inch of the garage. Wood, tools, Santa, camping gear, the dog. Ok, so get out the leaf blower and get to cleaning again. Luckily it is hot and I was sweating, so I had a nice cedar mud covering on me by the time I got most of the dust outside with the hurricane machine.
To the positive, the cedar strips are coming out really pretty.
dave