Wobble Dado balde?

[Greatwhitewing]

At the risk of stirring a hornets nest hear me out please.

I need to remove a LOT of material dado style, Router didn't work well for me. I don't need furniture quality bottom or precision width. Lap joints for 2x8 PT lumber x 32 cuts.

My table saw (Bosch 4001-09) will only take 1/2" stacked dado very safely and 5/8" width with adequate safety with only a small protrusion of arbor (a little less than recommended).

Current dado cuts like **** so I need a new dado regardless of style.

Will an adjustable shake my saw apart, ruin my wood? I do need consistent depth of cut. I don't mind buying a good tool but I don't want to destroy a precision $100+ when a $40 wobble looks to do the job faster.

Any one been down this road before?

 

[OccupantRJ]

Got a band saw? Of course, this would only work well at the ends of the lumber. If a dado is needed in the middle of a piece, I would use a router trapped inside a boxed jig. Take a piece of plywood, cut a square hole in it, then attach 2 runners underneath it. This would be placed onto the piece you are working, then clamped into place. The router with a 3/4 bit would be run around inside the opening in the plywood to do your cut. A temporary plywood base larger than the existing router base may have to be attached to it to keep the router gliding on the template without falling through the square hole. A control collar would be needed to guide the router in this case, instead of trying to use the router base to do it. Look at this thread I recently posted on the subject.

http://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=135053

 

[Greatwhitewing]

No band saw. Be a very good choice but probably couldn't justify the cost for likely only one job...

Got a band saw?

 

[oleblu]

I feel no vibrations with my wobble dado on either my table saw or radial arm saw.

 

[Greatwhitewing]

Which one do you use? I assume you're satisfied since you're still using it??

I feel no vibrations with my wobble dado on either my table saw or radial arm saw.

 

[shoot summ]

I used a wobble dado for years with no issues. It was on an old 1953 model Craftsman table saw. I built alot of cabinets with that saw.

 

[lilredex]

If you need to hog out material fast, you could get one of these for your angle grinder. Might need a platform of some type for your grinder and a suit of armour for yourself also.

Think you would want to be paying attention too!!

http://www.mhcrafters.com/servlet/the-2662/Lancelot-22-Tooth-Chain/Detail

 

[Greatwhitewing]

That looks a wood hungry beast but I need a little more control than that.

The band saw was an intriguing option but I would need a $1000 machine to what I need.

If you need to hog out material fast, you could get one of these for your angle grinder. Might need a platform of some type for your grinder and a suit of armour for yourself also.

Think you would want to be paying attention too!!

http://www.mhcrafters.com/servlet/the-2662/Lancelot-22-Tooth-Chain/Detail

 

[lilredex]

The platform I had in mind would be something like this, so you could control the depth.

<a href="http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/11/grinderstation1.jpg/" target="_blank"><img src="http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2261/grinderstation1.th.jpg" border="0"/></a>

 

[Kurt4440]

I would try this
http://cripedistributing.com/index.php/saw-blades/un-marked-irwin-8-stack-dado-set-carbide.html

 

[trboxman]

I'm curious why the router didn't work for you?

 

[Greatwhitewing]

Two problems I am having with the router, one is correctable.

As I make consecutive passes the depth is all over the place no matter how carefully I run the tool over. I am using Bora clamp guides and yes everything is tight. The depth is varying +/- over a 1/16 of an inch... Very disappointing..

The second problem (fixable) is the cutter isn't quite long or deep enough to fully cut in one pass. I can get a longer straight cutter I am sure. Leaves the top portion uncut.

I'm curious why the router didn't work for you?

 

[woody 73]

Maybe this trick might work for you: (But you will need a table saw and a 10' ripping blade).

Draw two parallel lines any width you choose down the length of your board, then set the exact depth of your saw blade and then make your first cut on one of those lines. Move your fence a series of times untill you hit the last parallel line. flip the board over and use a chisel to knock out any wood the saw missed.

Now you might be thinking that sounds very slow and it sounds like a lot of hard work for a large project , but just using a hand chisel at an angle will snap any missed wood and once you get the hang of it; doing an 8' board only takes a minute or two.

Been there done that!

Woody

 

[Kev442]

PT is going to be hard on any dado, so go with the wobble at a cheaper price. It should not vibrate much. This is probably the only situation where a RAS would do the job easier and more quickly.

 

[BlindViper]

This is what I would do

 

[porphyre]

What size dado are you trying to make? You said lap in a 2x8, so are you cutting 3/4" x 7.5"? Or are you doing the other way? 1.5" x 3.75"? Middle of the board or end?

Wobble dados are ok for building a deck or other non-finished work. I would never build something "nice" with one. The bottoms are not flat and the corners are not square.

 

[Greatwhitewing]

I was considering a jig something like that for the router to give me a flatter surface to run it on.

This is what I would do

 

[Greatwhitewing]

"so are you cutting 3/4" x 7.5"?"

Yes but times 32. For doors, 16 boards each with two ends to cut.

 

[trboxman]

Two problems I am having with the router, one is correctable.

As I make consecutive passes the depth is all over the place no matter how carefully I run the tool over. I am using Bora clamp guides and yes everything is tight. The depth is varying +/- over a 1/16 of an inch... Very disappointing..

The second problem (fixable) is the cutter isn't quite long or deep enough to fully cut in one pass. I can get a longer straight cutter I am sure. Leaves the top portion uncut.

Craftsman router by any chance? There is a model that's known for it's random automatic depth changes....

A couple of things, you probably shouldn't try and hog out more than about 3/8" of an inch in depth at any one pass, make multiple passes to get to the depth you want. You should make sure that your router collet is clean, dry and free of burrs or galling...and you shouldn't have your router bit bottomed out in the collet.

If none of that works, then I saw someone recommend making a bunch of parallel cuts and chiseling out the wood remaining...this is very effective and pretty quick.

 

[Greatwhitewing]

Not a Craftsman, Royobi R165

 

[BFBOB]

Double blade wobble dado blades don't shake. The two blades tilt in opposite directions so the dynamic imbalance is cancelled out. Sears has (or at least used to) an 8" dual dado called Exclibur. Ran as smooth as any blade, and since each blade tilts only half as much for a given width of cut, the bottom of the cut is smoother.

 

[trboxman]

Not a Craftsman, Royobi R165

Ah, well...I won't comment further...when it comes to woodworking machines I'm more closely aligned with the "always buy Snap On" crowd than I am with the "Harbor Freight is great" crowd...but then again woodworking is my main hobby and not just something that I do once a year or so....

 

[BlindViper]

I was considering a jig something like that for the router to give me a flatter surface to run it on.

If you are using a skill saw you dont even need the jig shown. I do it free hand and finish with a chisel.

 

[Larwyn]

I always heard that stack dado sets were better than a wobble blade. I used a wobble blade for several years on both the radial arm saw and the table saw because it was what I had. Now that I have a decent (Freud) stack dado set I realize that I was not really handicapped by the wobble blade. They both work, the stacked set does give a slightly flatter bottom to the groove. I never got any vibration out of the wobble blade or stacked set. On a saw with limited arbor length, a stacked dado might actually be a better choice for wider grooves.

 

[pop pop]

If I understand the cut, I recommend a Craftsman Wobble Dado with carbide on a radial arm saw. Set some stops and cut rapidly. If you need a real square fine finish. Wobble it short and narrow and finish a second pass with the stacked baldes.

 

[John Timmins]

A cabnet shop owner told me he had two RAS set up for dado blades only, the stacked kind. He also had a service that picked up the blades WEEKLY for sharpening ! I heard more than once to buy the best you can afford. I saw a stacked set on sale today at Lowes for about $55. The French made stacked set (forget the name) is marked down to $89 from about $100.

 

[Nighttrain]

To answer your question the wobble will work fine for what you want it to. I have a Delta wobble 8" a Craftsman 10" dual blade Excaliber and then I bought a $200 Freud stacked dado. As you mentioned the wobble will not give you a flat bottom as neither will the dual blade. But they will cut like you want with a consistant depth. I hope you have a dust collector because you will have a ton of PT chips and dust in the air.

 

[JASTECH]

Use a router, but not the Toy's R Us ones! A quality 3hp+ Triton or Freud and have at it. Don't forget quality bits too, not HF, HD ect.

 

[porphyre]

"so are you cutting 3/4" x 7.5"?"

Yes but times 32. For doors, 16 boards each with two ends to cut.

Hmmm. A wobble should do that ok. Sounds like you have a jobsite saw.... if it won't take a 1/2" stack, there may be clearance issues with a wobble set to 3/4".

 

[Frank The Plumber]

The wobble will cut nice cuts without a lot of tear out if it is sharp and you set the work up so that it does not get moved around as the work moves through the Dado. You can graduate the width and depth of the wobble dado as you use it so the material being removed is not so much that it causes shearing and binding and tear out. I'm using a cheap craftsman table and I get no jumping, the wobble is balanced for the most part.

If I set mine up I make a channel to feed the stock through with side guides and a top so the work does not lift or float up. My saw has the spacer that can be changed or removed to fit in varying blades, I think I remove it for the wobble Dado. You have to be vigilant about chip removal as well, it causes problems as the blades can't exhaust the chips and they jam in the kerf.

I've used this on furniture. You would never know.