Dado Tables

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 2:59 am

About 6 years ago I was bored and wasn't able to get in the shop just like now.... I had been doing some dado's the summer before and had to do a lot of "fitting".

I have both a wobble and stacked dado set. The summers project had me using the stacked dado and I was trying to get some odd sized dado's. I have the plastic shims for adjusting the stacked dado, but it seemed to take me a while to get to the result I wanted trying to figure out what parts I needed to put together and what shims I needed either for the initial setup or for adjustments later.

These look like my set but to be honest I'm not sure if they are... so keep that in mind. The dado blade is not from shopsmith either so keep that in mind. If someone who owns these can check the tables for thickness and color it would be great.

http://www.shopsmith.com/ownersite/cata ... oshims.htm

Assuming they are the same I'll go on.

OK then I first did a very simple table for my dado blade. It looks like this:
[ATTACH]3085[/ATTACH]

I know I know everyone can do this in there head but still it was a starting point.

What I did next was to build a shim table. Well to tell the truth two of them, just a bit of different format difference between them. These table are much larger then I can show in an image any have be able to read them so this is only a sample of each. They go from .002 to about 1/32" but the real tables go to .138". They are dumb tables just telling you about shims and don't take into account logical places where you might want to change shims for cutters... but I think you will see that if and when you get to see the whole table.

Now before I post these let's look at an example that you can use the charts for. Say you have some wood that you run though your planner and for some reason when you check them they are not 1/2" like you thought but rather 1/32" oversize. The closest that the dado set can get you is either 1/2" or 9/16" (1/16" chipper). At this point you grab the box of shims and start trying to figure out how to add 1/32". Sure you can do the math but what if you simply went to a chart and picked out 3 oranges, 1 purple and one black or shims that added up to 1/32"mmmmmm?

I know some of you will hate the small number and some of you already have other ways of doing this but how much interest is there in having me try to come up with a way of posting this information? I don't want to go to the trouble of messing with it if no one wants it anyway. And would you like them both or ???

Then tables:
[ATTACH]3086[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH]3087[/ATTACH]

Ed

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:05 am

OK I can see the tables didn't show up right... the decimal places for the different colors like say orange is .002", purple is .005, navy .010 and black at .020. The spread sheet has them right but when I moved them to open office they lost formatting. I'll fix that later.

Ed

OK take two on the tables
[ATTACH]3088[/ATTACH]

[ATTACH]3089[/ATTACH]

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:20 am

Testing open office pdf...
Does this work for people?

Ed
[ATTACH]3090[/ATTACH]

reible · Post by **reible** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:55 am

I just went to lay down and then it occurred to me that someone might be thinking hey he said if I set up for a dado of x/y" with those shims I will get these cuts down to .001". Sorry it unlikely that this is going to work that way. In fact depending on your blade set you might find the combination of chippers and blades may not come out as close to a size as you would like. Trial cuts are needed... the cut comes out say off my .010" putting or taking out .010" shims still may not get you to that perfect cut. These are only guide lines you will have to tweak from there.

How close to you have to be? That all depends. If it is a drawer back for in your shop maybe not so close. But say you have some cabinet fronts for your living room and you want to inlay some contrasting wood, I don't think you will impress many people if the dado is 1/32" larger then the insert... yea that might be a redo.

Now I don't have one of those expensive sets so maybe they do better at sizing them but a little testing never hurts.

So everyone got that... using these table will not necessary provide you the dimensions for a perfect fit... they will however be worth every cent you pay for them.

Ed

jnimz · Post by **jnimz** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 10:34 am

That's a lot of great ground work. Thank you. Once I get my dado blade, I'll have an easy go of it with these charts!

fixit · Post by **fixit** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 1:08 pm

Another great shop tool from Ed!:D Thanks so much for all your contributions to this forum. I read them all carefully and get some great information and ideas about what "new" things I can do with wood (and even with my tools).

Thanks again. Your inputs here continually make my (and I'm sure others as well) woodworking more productive and fun.

Only my age prevents me from using ALL your tips. Seems I sometimes forget some of them before I make it back into the shop!:eek:

pinkiewerewolf · Post by **pinkiewerewolf** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 3:47 pm

The PDF works great Ed.
Thanks for the charts/tables!

JPG · Post by **JPG** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 4:26 pm

reible wrote:Testing open office pdf...
Does this work for people?

Ed
[ATTACH]3090[/ATTACH]

You went to a lot of trouble there. GOOD JOB! We all thank you.

Did you do all that by hand?

baysidebob · Post by **baysidebob** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:41 pm

Ed, thanks for the charts, you do excellent work. We all reap the rewards of your labor, it is great that you take such good care of all.

Bayside Bob, Calif.

fjimp · Post by **fjimp** » Mon Jan 12, 2009 6:57 pm

Thanks Ed I confess to never having even thought of your idea. Great work as always. fjimp