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Welcome Brad. Nice shop (even if it is bigger than my house!)
How do you groove your drawer bottoms?
Doug
Rennie Heuer said:CheersWelcome Brad. Nice shop (even if it is bigger than my house!)
Oh boy, Doug!
This is about the biggest can of worms you can open when discussing shop safety in Europe. Many hours have been wasted on woodworking forums over here arguing about dado blades.
Basically, in a trade environment throughout Europe it is unlawful to fit dado blades in a table saw, and has been for many years. It is nigh on impossible to buy a table saw with a long enough spindle to take them anyway.
For a hobby woodworker in his garage the rule doesn't apply, and one or two importers market saws and dado sets specifically to this sector. However, they cannot be used commercially, even by a one-man band.
It is legal to use dado blades in a radial arm saw, but again all machines marketed in the last decade or so have short spindles which will only take a single blade. This goes for American brands such as DeWalt. The only solution is to buy an old machine, such as my Wadkin, which will take a dado set.
I think that we have a far greater degree of health and safety legislation in Europe generally than you guys do; it is a cultural difference - Europeans make laws to make things safer while Americans pay higher insurance premiums!
For myself, I'd rather keep all my fingers than get an insurance payout...
Cheers
Brad
Interesting laws! I would think pushing a board through the dado would be safer (blade is buried in the wood!) than a RAS (exposed blade, wanting to drive the head toward the operator). I assume it is standard practice to push the blade stack back through the wood, instead of pulling through the wood? It is generally accepted that using a RAS to do rip cuts is not a good idea, but what do you do if you have to cut a long dado, go to the router instead? You said it was a can of worms, so there is obviously some disagreement regarding the topic!