which dado set?

You generally get what you pay for. My older Amana set, while pricey, will cut a lot of clean, crisp edged dadoes before sharpening, while some of the cheaper sets cut good out of the box, but soon lose their crispness, particularly on laminates.

I bought a Ridge Carbide dado set at a woodworking show about two months ago, after seeing it demonstrated and comparing the cut to the Forrest Dado King. Both make *very* smooth-bottomed dados with negligible tear-out of the edges, better than any other dado set I'd ever seen. The differences that caused me to buy the Ridge set instead of the Forrest are:

- although the Forrest leaves only a very tiny "wing" in the corner of the dado, the Ridge leaves a nearly invisible faint _hint_ of a wing.

- the Ridge set is almost a hundred dollars (US) cheaper.

Slightly better cut at sixty percent of the price is a no-brainer.

The only complaint I have about the Ridge set is that it's hard to get on and off of my table saw arbor: the OD of the arbor is 0.625", and the IDs of the borings in the dado cutters must be about 0.6250000001". Seriously, they both measure dead-on 0.625" on my dial caliper, and it's a *really* tight fit. By contrast, the ID of the boring in my Forrest WWII blade measures about

-- Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

How come we choose from just two people to run for president and 50 for Miss America?

Forrest, especially if you do oak.

I noticed some sets like the Forrest King has 24 tooth outside blades while Dimar has 24 and 46 available. Is there any particular reason a person would buy a 24 tooth instead of a 46 tooth on an 8" stacked dado set? Wouldn't a

I have had good luck with the Systi-matic high end 8" set. Clean cuts even across the grain in plywood.

Mike from American Sycamore

"Guy LaRochelle" wrote

I got this blade for use with melamine and am very happy. Works well for all around use too and is a good price. I haven't used anything better at any price. However the tooth geometry is designed for fine cut of veneers without chipping so if I were just plowing miles of dadoes in plain wood i would choose a different one.

mike