Dado Arbor
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Trevanion
What it the thickness of the groover you linked to, looks a lot thicker than a standard TS blade. With a standard blade on my TS (AXI AW10BSB2) there is only approx 1mm of spare thread once the the locking nut is fitted, so anything thicker than a standard blade would mean the nut not being fully on the arbour.
What it the thickness of the groover you linked to, looks a lot thicker than a standard TS blade. With a standard blade on my TS (AXI AW10BSB2) there is only approx 1mm of spare thread once the the locking nut is fitted, so anything thicker than a standard blade would mean the nut not being fully on the arbour.
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
That's because it is significantly larger than a regular TS blade. Fully expanded the set would be about 25mm thick and it would only fit on an arbour long enough to take a dado stack.
Myfordman
In Remembrance 25/12/24 -- AKA 9Fingers
Have a look at the xcalibur saws from Woodford. the Mk1 have a cunning scheme to fit a different insert to hold a dado blade and they supplied one. I'd be surprised if the current model does not have a similar scheme. I think the saws are made by Harvey in China.
I'm sure someone on here bought one in the last year or so.
I'm sure someone on here bought one in the last year or so.
beech1948
Established Member
Its time to strike some balance in this old thread.
The key question should be Why were dado arbours banned for multi-person workshops in the UK. The answer is that too many people were losing the use of their limbs due to accidents with dado blades. I have friends with missing fingers, in one case he lost 1/2 his hand, another has a 3/4 inch scar from wrist to nearly his elbow.
That's what you face if you persist with this desire for a dado set. As an amateur you will be particularly vulnerable due to a lack of experience and teachers.
The answer is to use other means to create a dado. Eg:-
1) Saw and chisel...a bit old fashioned these days and requires a bit of skill.
2) Router using a jig...quite safe
4) Knife cut the edges very deeply and chisel out the remaining wood by chiselling to each edge.
There are a lot of ways to work wood. You should attempt to identify as many as possible for any given task and select the one which will work best for you. In the case of dado's that would probably be a router and jig.
Ignoring the obvious of there having been many accidents with dado sets previously leading to a ban in multi-person workshops should be scary enough for anyone. That a single person workshop is allowed to have dado sets is simply a stupid oversight.
The key question should be Why were dado arbours banned for multi-person workshops in the UK. The answer is that too many people were losing the use of their limbs due to accidents with dado blades. I have friends with missing fingers, in one case he lost 1/2 his hand, another has a 3/4 inch scar from wrist to nearly his elbow.
That's what you face if you persist with this desire for a dado set. As an amateur you will be particularly vulnerable due to a lack of experience and teachers.
The answer is to use other means to create a dado. Eg:-
1) Saw and chisel...a bit old fashioned these days and requires a bit of skill.
2) Router using a jig...quite safe
4) Knife cut the edges very deeply and chisel out the remaining wood by chiselling to each edge.
There are a lot of ways to work wood. You should attempt to identify as many as possible for any given task and select the one which will work best for you. In the case of dado's that would probably be a router and jig.
Ignoring the obvious of there having been many accidents with dado sets previously leading to a ban in multi-person workshops should be scary enough for anyone. That a single person workshop is allowed to have dado sets is simply a stupid oversight.
Shane‘s weekend builds
Member
Really just curious, do you have any official source that this is the reason for this ban?
Why is a dado stack more dangerous than a normal blade or a Groove cutter? Because of the missing riving knife? I think if you do non-through cuts the chance of kickback is much lower. Or what type of accidents are dedicated to the use of a dado stack?
To my humble knowledge dado stacks are banned because of their inertia and the possibility to unscrew the arbor nut on a braked saw. And the braked saw is definitely in accordance to a European regulation saying the blade must stop within 10 seconds max.
Just trying to learn as imho dado stacks aren't as bad as their reputation is in Europe.
Trevanion
Greatest Of All Time
I really don't want to contradict you Beech, but you're not totally correct as they've never been outright "banned".
The HSE states (which is more guidance than actual law), so long as the dado stack/trencher is of the chip limitation type and the machine is capable of running them safely (IE, absolutely no chance of it coming loose when running down) with proper guarding in place and braking in less than 10 seconds, it's completely legal, In both table saws and radial arm saws. The main problem came about when the PUWER regulations came in demanding that all machines must be braked to stop in less than 10 seconds and basically all table saws weren't designed to come to a sudden stop like that and even with a single blade coming to a halt the nuts would come loose and consequently the blade also as I said in an earlier post.
Where you'll run into danger is with the older style of dado/trenching heads where there was quite a bit of skill and care involved in the set-up to avoid them being a dangerous piece of equipment that could take a large bite and throw the workpiece back at you or worse still, pull you into the machine and chop you up like a wood chipper. I don't like to make assumptions but I would assume this was the style of equipment your friends may have been running back in the day?
beech1948
Established Member
My point was to try to warn the OP away from dado blades due to his lack of experience.
I agree that technically a dado blades is not "banned" and that the problem was how to guard the worker from the blades plus the issue of momentum from the heavy dado stack.
In practice few if any dado blades are used with guarding. I have not seen any guards available on the market. There might be some however.
In practice the problems caused by a lack of guarding result in a "ban".
Why would you subject yourself to the risk when there are alternative ways to achieve the required result.
I agree that technically a dado blades is not "banned" and that the problem was how to guard the worker from the blades plus the issue of momentum from the heavy dado stack.
In practice few if any dado blades are used with guarding. I have not seen any guards available on the market. There might be some however.
In practice the problems caused by a lack of guarding result in a "ban".
Why would you subject yourself to the risk when there are alternative ways to achieve the required result.
Inspector
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The primary reason a dado stack is more dangerous is because of the amount of material they are cutting and their more aggressive teeth they have much more violent kickbacks. When things go bad your hand goes gets chewed up even more than a regular saw blade which is already bad enough. You might think non through cuts are not going to kick back but they do happen. If you do the math a dado stack 3/4" wide cutting 1/2" deep removes the same amount of material as a 1/8" thick blade at 3" depth of cut. That is why dado blades are more dangerous. So a person with limited experience is more likely to do something dumb, especially on a small portable saw, and get themselves into big trouble. If you can pick up the saw it shouldn't have a dado set in it. I'd even extend that to light weight saws that a couple people can easily pick up. The top and fence are too small and they are not guarded properly but that is what beginners gravitate to because they are cheap or they don't have room for a good cabinet saw. Experience woodworker can get in trouble the same saws too.
Watching a few youtube videos doesn't pass as proper instruction or experience. There is more to them than meets the eye. So until you develop the skills and understanding don't play with them.
I do use them but I had good instruction, have 40+years hobby woodworking and now have a SawStop just in case the law of averages catches up to me.
Pete
Hi,
Can you tell me what uk suppliers you are looking at for this saw,I can't find any!!! Thanks.
cutting solutions
Established Member
Any multi piece tool must be "pinned" to other parts so that all parts have the potential to stop at the same time.
with most dado you cannot pin together pieces as the pin will protrude.
If the pieces are not pinned it is "possible" for the middle parts (chippers) to continue turning when you aply the brake.
original EN847 regulations from 1998 IIRC
with most dado you cannot pin together pieces as the pin will protrude.
If the pieces are not pinned it is "possible" for the middle parts (chippers) to continue turning when you aply the brake.
original EN847 regulations from 1998 IIRC
Terrytpot
Established Member
Still early days for me with a hunk of research yet to be done and stock levels would also need to be accounted for but here you go:
Axminster Trade AT254LTS Table Saw is a fairly low spec Harvey and theres also this offering :
https://www.baileighindustrial.co.uk/entry-level-cabinet-saw-ts-1040e-30-1
Well, coming from Canada I've used dado blades quite a lot on my table saw and I don't find them fiddly, particularly dangerous, or any of that. I've got a couple of sets - a Freud that came with my latest saw (looks like it was imported), and the S&S set. Both are great, both are just accessories.
I like using dados when I'm knocking up a carcass out of MDF (dust collection... oh lord you need dust collection) because it's quick and very easy to be accurate. But 'quick' is relative. If I'm putting in a single dado pair, I'll do it by hand because it's quicker then setting up the blade. If I'm doing more then that I'll get out the dado set. If you're just starting to use one for the first time, you'll take a lot more time to dial in the fit. Since I tend to use them with MDF more then anything else, I keep a little chart with which blades and which spacers I've used in the past with which thickness of MDF. You can just take a minute to do the math each time of course, but I found that numbering the blades and spacers you have and keeping track of which ones go with which thicknesses of MDF saves me from doing any more then a single test-fit cut.
I didn't even need that back in Canada, but the weird thing is that the MDF I buy here isn't always the exact same thickness. Took a little getting used to.
There's always a lively discussion about North American table saw usage vs European when the topic comes up. I will say that in most places in the US and in Canada, you learn how to use a table saw safely in high school shop class. If your first introduction to a table saw is TV or the internet, you're at something of a disadvantage... and YouTube isn't a great place to go for safety tips for any kind of tool (though there are great channels out there that are the exception.).
If you understand kickback and how it can happen, if you understand that guards should not be removed for any cut other then ones that specifically require it, if you know where to stand and how to feed material into the saw, and if you know that all the safety features in the world won't save you from carelessness, then you should be fine to use a dado blade. There's a lot more to learn about table saws then just what I've written, but If you don't know the things above you're not ready to put any sort of blade on your table saw.
That adjustable groover set looks pretty darned cool though. I normally wouldn't casually put a tool made for one machine into another one, but the specs on that seem solid. If that works as well as it looks like it does, it would certainly be a much better approach then a traditional dado set. If they made one that went from 6mm to 19mm it would be just about perfect.
dak.
I like using dados when I'm knocking up a carcass out of MDF (dust collection... oh lord you need dust collection) because it's quick and very easy to be accurate. But 'quick' is relative. If I'm putting in a single dado pair, I'll do it by hand because it's quicker then setting up the blade. If I'm doing more then that I'll get out the dado set. If you're just starting to use one for the first time, you'll take a lot more time to dial in the fit. Since I tend to use them with MDF more then anything else, I keep a little chart with which blades and which spacers I've used in the past with which thickness of MDF. You can just take a minute to do the math each time of course, but I found that numbering the blades and spacers you have and keeping track of which ones go with which thicknesses of MDF saves me from doing any more then a single test-fit cut.
I didn't even need that back in Canada, but the weird thing is that the MDF I buy here isn't always the exact same thickness. Took a little getting used to.
There's always a lively discussion about North American table saw usage vs European when the topic comes up. I will say that in most places in the US and in Canada, you learn how to use a table saw safely in high school shop class. If your first introduction to a table saw is TV or the internet, you're at something of a disadvantage... and YouTube isn't a great place to go for safety tips for any kind of tool (though there are great channels out there that are the exception.).
If you understand kickback and how it can happen, if you understand that guards should not be removed for any cut other then ones that specifically require it, if you know where to stand and how to feed material into the saw, and if you know that all the safety features in the world won't save you from carelessness, then you should be fine to use a dado blade. There's a lot more to learn about table saws then just what I've written, but If you don't know the things above you're not ready to put any sort of blade on your table saw.
That adjustable groover set looks pretty darned cool though. I normally wouldn't casually put a tool made for one machine into another one, but the specs on that seem solid. If that works as well as it looks like it does, it would certainly be a much better approach then a traditional dado set. If they made one that went from 6mm to 19mm it would be just about perfect.
dak.
Unfortunately you then forget everything you learned as soon as you decide to make a YouTube video it seems.
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custard
Established Member
This is one of those zombie myths that refuses to die. My Felder saw comes with a dado arbor, indeed Felder also sell a full range of different dado stacks, dado zero clearance inserts, and the saw's manual gives full instructions for dado operations. All this despite Felder being about as European as the Schengen Zone!
Here's a video of a Hammer/Felder machine using a dado stack to cut dado joints,
The reality is that woodworking is as much to do with cultural traditions as it is about absolute efficiency or best practise. In North America the dado stack habit has just sort of lingered. But in Europe, including the UK, routing became established earlier than in the US and a hand held router with the right jigs can do most things that you'd do with a dado stack. In fact I've previously posted that I'm pretty sure the very first hand held routers back in the 1950's were actually designed primarliy as dado/housing joint machines, and they only later evolved into the general purpose devices we have today.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/elu-mof-11-elus-first-router.113367/
Basically I agree with Trevanion. I've got a dado stack, but I probably only use it two or three times a year. Most times a router is just quicker and more accurate. Yet new UK woodworkers, weaned on a diet of American YouTube videos, will no doubt continue to lust after them!
Thanks for this. I knew Axminster was doing their version, you are right that does seem quite low spec. I spoke with balleigh recently and they don't have much stock of anything until after Christmas.
Tendo tools seem to import them too along with some other interesting brands (steel city??)
Not sure where to go to replace my Charnwood.!!!
Good luck anyway.
I've used a dado blade for 20 years now and never had a problem. I made a decision when starting out to buy an American saw with a 5/8 inch arbor like the Baileigh above and love it. Its generally not appreciated in this country that tablesaws are very versatile as long as you have the 5/8 " arbor which allows you to buy American made products .I have Infinity flat ground blades going up to 1/4" kerf ( great for finger joints ) a magic molder set ( American spelling ) which allows moulding cuts and finally splashed out the Miter fold blade developed by Andy Klein which makes mitered joints for boxes very easy.
Dado blades give a very clean cut which beats a router cutter any day. As for safety, of course care is paramount but at least the blade is always below the surface of the wood. Push sticks or rubber coated push pads are mandatory as well as some common sense. !
They are a bit of a poor mans tool and certainly not suitable for production runs but I find them very useful in the workshop.
