I started this project because I felt there was alot of room for improvement in what was out there for dust collection for these type of saws. There are only a few choices that I seen when I was looking around the internet for dust collection for the Contractor type saws, the generic plastic flat tray hood or a dust bag. The advantages to my sheet metal designed hood over the generic plastic tray hood are, it's groundable, commercially durable, a larger area for the dust to drop into, and the port comes out the back between the legs of the saw stand, which offers a more convieniant hose connection and eliminates the need to bend the DC hose or install a elbow that would result in a CFM reduction, with this hood it's a straight shot out with the DC hose. As far as closeing the back of the saws cabinet goes, I have heard a few stories of people makeing a plywood back then forgeting to remove it when beveling the blade and forcing the trunion out of line, I even heard of one guy cracking a trunion and was without a saw till the new part arrived, and it wasn't cheap. So instead of going that route I closed the gap between the saws cabinet and top with 1" closed cell foam and used magnetic sign material to block the opening around the bevel indicator on the front of the saws cabinet. As you can see I blocked the blade on the backside that also moves with the trunion and blade when doing beveled cuts, this keeps the blade from throwing dust out the back of the cabinet. Now all the fresh air needed for the dust collecter to breath comes in from the back of the cabinet, reducing the chance of the fine dust generated inside the cabinet from escaping out the back also. A heavy gauge sheet metal was used on all the parts.
These dust hoods are now sold by Penn state Industries 
