Dado Recommendation

[Leon]

Perhaps English is not Tim's first language and misunderstood Bob's comment and or question.

[Leon]

A great blade can be limited by the equipment it is mounted on. If your equipment is not built or set up to the same tolerances as the blade you may never see the blades full potential. Additionally, will the $100 Forrest hold up as long as the Forrest?

[AndrewV]

I have a 10" dado set for my 12" 5hp table saw, I also needed a 1"-5/8" adapter. I got mine from Ridge Carbide

it came with the adaptor. I don't use it commercially but see no reason you couldn't. They could make you a set with a custom arbor size I just did not need it for my usage. I would deal with them again.

Just a satisfied customer

Andrew

[CW]

As 30mm is far larger than 5/8, an adapter would not be possible. While any of the manufacturer would probably custom bore a set to your specifications, Forrest is most likely to do it reasonabley.

[Tim Taylor]

I'm not. Forgive me, or rather this stupid ass ISP. They screwed up again!! Disregard things that look out of place, because they are. Wasn't my fault. Well I guess it is, I should really get a better news reader.

[Prometheus]

Ahh, I see. I guess it's just one of those things where I'm inclined to think the Freuds are good enough, despite the assertion I've seen that Forrest is a better brand. I've been running a Diablo for about three years, and it still hasn't needed a sharpening- so even if it can't be resharpened at all (unlikely at best, but you never know) I'm not going to lose any sleep over $40 every three or four years.

And the other side of the more/less expensive argument is that one of my Freuds (not the Diablo, of course) costs more than the low end Forrest anyhow. Ditto for the suggested retail price on the laminate blade I got from Delta. The question has to arise as to which is better then, as the "you get what you pay for" argument seems to be the one that most commonly gets used when it comes to blades and bits.

Of course, I'm not running production, either- at most that blade gets run is about 15 hours a week. I might change my tune if my home shop's blades are ever called on to run 40+ hours a week. But until they do, it'll be a moot point. I can't see worrying about a blade that leaves glassy-smooth cuts on hardwood because it doesn't have a reputation of being the absolute best. :)

Now back to the OP- you said you can't buy a dado stack because of security (safety?) issues. So will you be able to get the thing sharpened, or is it a one-shot sort of thing? It may well be worth your while to go for the best set (which is the Forrest, by general concensus) to limit furtively searching for someone to tune the blades up if the saw sharpeners are not allowed to work on them. AFAIK, Forrest does the sharpening and re-truing on their own sets via mail.

On the other hand, Europe isn't that big- and Freud is based in Italy. Can't you buy a dado stack factory direct and bring it home in your luggage? Or don't they sell them there, either?

[J. Clarke]

Apparently they have some kind of regulation about how fast the saw has to stop and dado blades add enough inertia that the saw won't stop within the allowed time.

Fellow I used to work with came to the US in the early 40s due to having the good fortune to survive an encounter with the 82nd Airborne. A few years ago he went back to Germany to visit relatives--first time he had been back since he was captured. His comment was that they lived really well, had nice houses, beautiful furniture, and there wasn't enough money in the whole world to induce him to move back there.

[edswoods.1]

I agree 100 per cent about the Nanny State stuff, on the other hand it's good to be aware of the damage a dado setup can do. As part of your community service and classroom time children I'll describe something I did as a novice - The 5 blades were set up for dadoing and in the meantime I needed to rip a board. The amount of waste didn't matter and I didn't feel like changing the blade, so I began the rip. The wood began to warp and there was a big boom! and the piece flew into my solar plexus, knocking the wind out of me. The next day I noticed that the blade was out of parallel with the table. The force of the wood jamming against the blade actually bent the trunnion of the saw!