I've been cutting a lot of dados with a router and now I understand why people get dado blades for their table saw. Doing it with a router is SLOW. I've got 180 1/4" slots to cut and this is going to take days.
I think I 'll bite the bullet and go get a dado blade. Is there any problem I should know about to use a dado with a Jet Supersaw? I was thinking about the 8" Forrest dado king.
It is not just depth of cut. I have a Ridge Northwoods and the 8" is $10 more than the 6".
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Tip speed of the blade is going to be higher than with a 6". Everything else being equal, you can get a smoother cut and faster feed rate. I may change my mind to save $100, but not for $10. I bought my blade at one of the shows and could have had either for the same price. The 6" are made for lower powered benchtop saws. Any 1.5 hp motor can handle the larger blade.
Would you choose smaller penis just to save 10 bucks? ;) Ed
What I did do was buy the highest rated dado set in it's price range. It was the second highest rated overall. (At least when I bought it.) Only the Forrest was higher rated.
Today, the 8" Freud is $159.99 at Amazon. The 6" is 74.99. The price difference was similar when I bought mine. The 6" is also a good product. The magazine I looked at rated it a best buy.
I have a friend who has the 6" and it cuts very good dadoes. I haven't compared them with a microscope but I honestly can't tell the difference. Flat bottoms, no tearout, etc.
The Forrest 8" is $279.99 at Amazon. That's a lot of money for a dado set. I would personally go with the Freud. Either the 6" or 8".
Thanks for everyone's comments. Obviously there are some variables, but my overall impression is that both Freud and Forrest would be good to excellent. After that, it gets to each person's budget and personal value judgement. There is no right and wrong answer when it comes to that.
So I'm off to exercise my personal value judgement. :-)
Not to mention broken router bits caused by getting into a hurry. (voice of experience, and I'm very glad that I was wearing a full face shield!)
For a 1/4" slot, you could just make multiple passes with a regular TS blade. Still time consuming, but faster than a router (I've done that myself with just a circular saw, with acceptable results). Many carbide-tipped blades cut a kerf wider than 1/8", so the most you would have to do is two passes.
Also, for a slot that size, you could make one pass with the TS, and a
2nd with the router, and it would still go quicker. I did that on one project where I needed several 1/2 x 1/2" slots -- I went down each side of the slot with the saw (set just an RCH under 1/2" depth), then once down the middle, then a final pass with a 1/2" bit for a clean, flat, accurate dado. But for 180 1/4" slots, I'd just do it all on the TS. I'd do one pass on the whole lot, then carefully reset the fence, and make the 2nd pass on the whole lot.
Another idea I have seen (but haven't used yet) is to just buy two (or three) matched blades, and mount them together, making fine adjustment using cardboard shims.
That is quite a difference. I can understand a small increment but not twice the price. At the WW show where I bought my Ridge Carbide they were selling the 6" and 8" at the same price.
I could not justify the difference in cost of the Ridge versus the Forrest either. FWIW, there is a review of blades in the latest issue of Wood magazine. Seems like Oldham is the only one rated down a bit in performance. They also showed a couple of slots cut with a wobble versus stacked dado. No comparison. Wish they would have done a test of the Harbor Freight for comparison. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net
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