The August issue of Workbench mentions a router dado jig called Dadowiz, which along with another gizmo called the Clamp-N-Tool Guide, creates an attractive jig for routing very accurate dados. Considering the expense involved, I figured I ask others before I leapt in: does anybody have one of these? Do you like it? If you had to do it again, would you still buy it?
Supposedly Woodline sells the Dadowiz, the tool guide and a right angle bracket but I can only find the Dadowiz itself on their site.
The clamp-n-tool guide is well worth the money. I use it on almost every project I have that involves a router.
I don't know about the Dadowiz, but I picked up a tool called "dial-a-dado" for about $30 (don't remember the exact price). Basically, you cut a slightly undersized dado, and then you can dial the base and route it again to get the exact dado size you want. It's on clearance at Hartville tool now. I haven't had a chance to try it.
But that brings me to the reason why I haven't tried it yet. When I normally do dados for shelves, I cut a 1/4 inch dado, and then create a tongue (slightly less than 1/4") on the edge plywood shelf. I use this method because typically I end up cutting from several sheets of plywood. Because there's a lot of variation in actual thickness in 3/4" plywood, it seems like you'd have to calculate the "exact" dado for every shelf seperately, and that is too error prone for me. I just know I'd end up with a shelf that didn't fit during glue up.
So, someday, when I make something small, and all the parts are cut from the same sheet of plywood, I will try the dail-a-dado. In theory, it looks good.
Or for about $10 worth of Baltic Birch plywood you can copy my design that Morris Dovey has so graciously posted on his web site. It is accurate for most any size dado and is self squaring. Take a look here
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