Monday, January 20, 2014

2 step dado with the bench dog router table



Cutting dados on the table saw is straightforward, but tedious. Remove the blade, and mount dado stack. Shim or dial to desired width. Getting the width set is a chore, but it works. And for projects with a lot of the same size dados, efficiency of scale is on your side.

But when you only need to cut one or two, it takes more time to set up and break down than it does to make the cut(s). Especially with the SawStop, when it means swapping cartridges, too. Some folks will make multiple passes with the saw blade because it's faster. I've done that myself. But if you need more than three or four passes, that gets tedious, too.

This is a little bit better for wider dados... Like the ones I just cut for the out feed bridge. I use the saw blade to define the edges of the cut, and clear the waste with a straight bit in the router table, using the table saw fence to guide the cut. If multiple passes are required, (as here) they're much easier to do with the saw fence, both because it sets up faster, and because it's easier to see how much you're moving the fence. (No need to set and reset the router table fence by trial and error, no need for setup blocks.)

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Apologies for the photo quality... posting via iPhone has been glitchy lately.

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