more dado

Electric Comet · 2017-01-16T20:05:03+00:00

6 inch dado versus 8 inch 6 inch should be plenty for me but i am wondering if there is any upside to 8 inch that i am not considering besides all the obvious things like increased depth of cut faster blade rotation any other things that make 8 inch better

Jan 16, 2017 26 Replies

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Brewster 9 years ago

Sure, that'll do. I have a granite plate with a height gauge always handy so I use that. A flat spacer can be used to space the blade off the surface enough to clear the teeth and a feeler gauge used to record the offset (to be subtracted from the measured height). This would allow more pressure to be applied, but a PITA in general.

If you over do it. I just press enough to insure the shims and blades are in contact. Doesn't take much.

The teeth are wider

Many ways to do it. The main thing is you can stack the blades off the saw and not have to deal with the arbor access issues most saws have.

For the organized people among us, one can always keep a record of the chipper/shim combos used for a particular cut width. Need a cut 0.010" under your record of a perfect 0.750"?, just subtract a 0.010" shim.

My biggest gripe is having the shims drop down into the acme thread grove when trying to set up a blade. I've tried scotch tape over the threads but the blade fit to the arbor is too close for the tape to survive. A glue stick works, but there has to be a better way.

-BR

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Puckdropper 9 years ago

Brewster wrote in news:o6l3i5$410$ snipped-for-privacy@gioia.aioe.org:

Just an idea... Electrical tape is often a few mil thick. (Read the package.) If you need just that little shim, a couple pieces of electrical tape stacked might give you the spacing you need and wouldn't fall off the chipper.

Electrical tape does stretch and wrinkle, so you might wind up a few thou off in either direction.

Puckdropper

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krw 9 years ago

I have a granite slab, too, but wasn't sure what you meant. This sounds like a lot of work to go through (measure height, gap, subtract) and quite error prone.

I wouldn't touch the cutters to the anything hard, much less "push down" on the stack. The bolt idea is worth considering but this doesn't appeal to me at all.

Seems like magnetic shims would fix this problem.

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Leon 9 years ago

I use magnetic shims and place them on the blade before mounting the blade. That prevents them from slipping down into the threads.

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Brewster 9 years ago

On 1/29/17 9:28 AM, Puckdropper wrote: > > Electrical tape does stretch and wrinkle, so you might wind up a few thou > off in either direction.

Wow, great suggestions!

The tape is intriguing, but I often end up with 0.030 or more of shimming, twould be a pain to set up. For a few thous of shimming it would be quick and easy. Now if they could make the shims like a post-it note...

I'll look into the magnetic shims. My shim set is copper and brass, and quite potato chip shaped. The shims that came with my Freud set (which I haven't used/opened) are steel (and flat). I'm guessing I can magnetize them fairly easily.

Thanks guys!

-BR

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