Discovered the curved dado today

Chris Hatfield

Former Member (by the member's request)
Messages
380
Making a caddy for my ROS and paper, and the dados were coming along fine until the last one. My fence was too far over, and I was pushing too far away from the blade. Voila, a curved dado.

Got lucky, it was only a 6.5"x5.5" of 1/2" ply. Got a little cut on my stomach.

1862d0f9-72af-5684.jpg
 
Sure. I set up a sacrificial fence for the dado stack and was making the cuts from the top to the bottom, moving the fence over 1.5" each time. On the last one, the fence was too far over from the blade. I was also pushing on the piece with my stick between the blade and the fence. The piece rose up a touch on the blade and cartwheeled back at me. It was a cheap lesson to learn.

I finished the cut on that one and the opposite piece by readjusting the fence closer to the blade an turning the piece around, which I should have done in the first place, or used a featherboard on the left side of the blade.
 
That piece is way too narrow to use with a fence. Better might have been using a miter gauge and a longer board. Cut off the smaller piece after dadoing.

Glad nothing bad happened,
Bob
 
That piece is way too narrow to use with a fence. Better might have been using a miter gauge and a longer board. Cut off the smaller piece after dadoing.

Glad nothing bad happened,
Bob

Another approach would be to use a push block (like the Grrripper) instead of push sticks. I pretty much refuse to use push sticks on a tablesaw anymore, because they don't offer nearly as good of control of the piece as the Grrripper does.

Glad you didn't get hurt any worse than you did, Chris.
 
Another approach would be to use a push block (like the Grrripper) instead of push sticks. I pretty much refuse to use push sticks on a tablesaw anymore, because they don't offer nearly as good of control of the piece as the Grrripper does.

Glad you didn't get hurt any worse than you did, Chris.

That's on my wish list. For sturdiness, it was fine until that last cut.
 
A few things to consider, Pushers, Featherboards, hold-downs,
Allof which beats freehand and keeps hand attached and free of harm.
 
Chris,

Thanks for sharing. I've always wanted to get one of those dadoes that can do curves.
Could you give me the brand and how much they cost? I couldn't seem to find them in the store today!:rofl::rofl::rofl:

I'm glad you weren't hurt!

I always keep an extra pair of shorts in the first aid kit. It seems they go well with a band-aid!

Brian
 
Basically. I made the walls a bit taller up top to secure the ROS.

I like the handles there. May have to borrow that.
 
Is yours a palm grip style sander?

I have the Makita with the handle on the back end & the knob on the front & variable speed. It gets left on high most of the time.

For the handles you'll need to put plugs in the ends of the grooves or make stopped grooves. I think I just cut a groove in a strip of red oak cut to drawer width & glued each piece to the plywood front edge & then plugged the ends.
 
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