I have had some conversations with a friend of mine over the past bunch of years about these blast gates that I’ve been using. They are very cool.
I had the typical blast gates that everyone uses that were simple lift gates. My problem with them were the first set that I had were plastic and they got clogged quite often. I had to take my system apart to unclog them. I replaced them with basically the same kind of gate but metal but they still clogged and required occasional dismantling to clean. A few years ago, I came across these blast gates:
As you can see, these gates have a circular opening that keeps the channel that the gate slides in clear when the gate is open and as the gate slides closed, no dust can get in the channel. I have not had any clogging issues since I have had these gates installed.
Anyway, I had forgotten where I obtained these gates. I was listening to one of the woodworking podcasts that I listen to and Matt and Marc at Woodtalk Online reminded me that it was Lee Valley that had them.
I highly recommend these as gates. They are very low maintenance and very easy to use. You do have to have clearance on the bottomside as well as the topside but that is the only concern in installing them.