Dado Blade

shydragon · Post by **shydragon** » Tue May 26, 2009 3:07 pm

That might have been their annual swap meet. Ours is this coming weekend. I plan on dropping buy. I don't have anything to sell, but find see a good deal on something.

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Tue May 26, 2009 7:41 pm

After seeing those pictures of the dado's I now see why JPG doesn't think wobble dado cutters are any good. I'd be putting that sucker on ebay...

Maybe with a very short disclaimer that I didn't really like it.
I have one just like Dusty's and it suited me fine. I also have a couple of the stacked chipper type that are I think both Craftsman and they seem fine. I just picked up one at a yard sale for a buck that is a stacked one but is only maybe 4" in diameter. It has teeth on the side blades that look a little like crosscut saw teeth. I'll have to try it out sometime. If it works OK it will become my "loaner".

Sometimes when people know that you have a lot of tools they come borrowing. I just keep some tools for loaning and some that "nobody" touches.

At one time I loaned my tandem axle tractor hauling trailer a few times to help people out. Most of the time it came home with the wiring screwed up. Had to stop that. A guy I knew on-line claimed that in order to stop people from always wanting to borrow his big goose-neck trailer that he put a ball pointing down on the trailer front and a trailer hitch assembly upside down in the center of his truck bed so it was configured too different for anybody to borrow it...

Nobody has ever asked to borrow a ShopSmith...

lv2wdwrk · Post by **lv2wdwrk** » Tue May 26, 2009 9:29 pm

robinson46176 wrote: Nobody has ever asked to borrow a ShopSmith...

Farmer,

I have a project I am getting ready to start and I need another saw. Can I borrow your shopsmith?:D

earlmorton · Post by **earlmorton** » Tue May 26, 2009 11:06 pm

I have the Freud 8-in Dial-a-Width dado, and it works great on my ShopSmith. However, I cannot use the lower saw guard with it because the screws that attach the dialing mechanism to the dado rub on the guard. I intend to make a guard someday, but for now I just go without. That's both a little more dangerous and eliminates dust collection.

Something else you might want to consider: The 6-in Freud is a lot less metal to spin around, and takes less power. The only advantage (I think) to the larger dado is a slightly greater depth of cut, but honestly, how often do you cut dados deeper than 3/4 inch? (I wish someone had told me this before I spent the extra money on the 8-in!)

rustybottom · Post by **rustybottom** » Wed May 27, 2009 11:49 am

guyt wrote:Hi! Does anyone know if the Freud 8" Dial-a-width Dado set fits the Shopsmith?

I've never had good luck with any dial-a-width type set. The stacked set gives much better results, but needs to be sharp.

robinson46176 · Post by **robinson46176** » Wed May 27, 2009 9:55 pm

lv2wdwrk wrote:Farmer,

I have a project I am getting ready to start and I need another saw. Can I borrow your shopsmith?:D

Just drop by with your wood. Of course you may have to wait for a month for me to get the shop ready.

lv2wdwrk · Post by **lv2wdwrk** » Wed May 27, 2009 10:14 pm

robinson46176 wrote:Just drop by with your wood. Of course you may have to wait for a month for me to get the shop ready.

Now you can say someone asked to borrow your SS.

earlmorton · Post by **earlmorton** » Wed May 27, 2009 11:05 pm

rustybottom wrote:I've never had good luck with any dial-a-width type set. The stacked set gives much better results, but needs to be sharp.

You might not be familiar with the Freud Dial-a-Width set. It is a stacked dado. But instead of requiring shims, it has a mechanism to make minute adjustments much more easily. And it gives excellent results.

Earl Morton
Kent, WA

charlese · Post by **charlese** » Thu May 28, 2009 7:04 pm

I finally had a chance to find the magazine article testing 6" dado blades that I had mentioned earlier.

For those who wish to look it up it is in "WOOD Magazine - Issue #188 (December/January, 2008/2009 - page 50.

They tested 13 ea. 6" stacked dado sets in a comparison test. I know you can't always take what the mags. say for gospel, but of the 13 they found 4 of them better than the others.

Here's their list of the better ones:
CMT Precision Dado 230.020.06
Freud Super Dado SD506
Freud Dial-A-Width SD606
Forrest Dado King DK06244

Personally I liked what they had to say about the 6" Freud Dial-A-Width. They say it is adjustable in increments of .004" per click of the mechanism.

It is a pretty involved comparison, mostly because of the differences in shims used. If you are interested, try to get the article.

Edit - found a link to that article: http://www.woodstore.net/6dadosets.html

heathicus · Post by **heathicus** » Tue Jul 21, 2009 10:26 am

Several months ago my dad bought a wobble type dado blade for me for a project we were working on. After opening it, we realized it wouldn't fit the arbor on my stand alone table saw (the arbor isn't long enough). I kept it because I knew it would fit the arbor on my SS 10ER. But I still couldn't use it at the time because I was in the middle of restoring the 10ER.

The dado is an "Oldham" brand. I finally used it yesterday to quickly cut some half lap joints for a gate I was building. Before I started cutting the treated pine, I ran a test dado set to 3/4" on a scrap piece of 2x6 whitewood. The result was quite horrible. The bottom was rounded out and jagged, one corner was deeper than the other one, there were ridges down the length of the dado, and the width was 13/16" instead of 3/4". I wish I had been able to test it when we had just bought it and still had the receipt so I could take it back.

It worked fine for what I was doing because I didn't need highly accurate and pretty dados for the gate - I just needed to clear out a lot of material fast. But when I do need something to look and fit better, I'm going to need to buy another dado.