Repeat dados, wider than dado stack, is this possible?

[Peter Hartman]

Hopefully this picture expains what I am trying to do. Each bar has 8 evenly spaced cuts. I have 20 of them to do. My dado will not cut the full width of the cut in one pass. I thought I had this figured out but when I went to do it I failed. I scratched my head for about 2 hours and made lots of test cuts but I could not come up with anything. I also have a router table I can utilize but only one miter guage.

[Phil Barrett]

I think you could make a router jig to do this pretty easily. Take a look at "exact width dado jig" on the internet. It should be fairly easy to adapt to your needs.

[glenn bradley]

I use a dado stack narrower than most of the dados I cut. I have a DRO on the tablesaw and making one cut then moving the fence a precise amount and making the second cut is a normal part of how I do work. For finger joints like it appears you are doing I use a sled, stop block and setup blocks.

CoD drawers 3.jpg . CoD drawers 4.jpg . CoD drawers 5.jpg . CoD-fingers-2-to-go.jpg

[Keith Pleas]

For finger joints like it appears you are doing I use a sled, stop block and setup blocks.

That is gorgeous work!

[Jim Matthews]

Looks to me like you need 5 spacers.

Fence plus first offset to finish Dado A

Fence plus second offset to start Dado B
Second offset + first offset to finish Dado B

Fence plus third offset to start Dado C
Third offset + first offset to finish Dado C

You could use MDF to make the offset the length of your fence.

I would make them as blocks and use them as spacers such as Glenn shows above.

[Bill Adamsen]

Glen, are you doing the square pin holes with a square mortise bit? The irregular pattern is really lovely.

[cody michael]

Hopefully this picture expains what I am trying to do. Each bar has 8 evenly spaced cuts. I have 20 of them to do. My dado will not cut the full width of the cut in one pass. I thought I had this figured out but when I went to do it I failed. I scratched my head for about 2 hours and made lots of test cuts but I could not come up with anything. I also have a router table I can utilize but only one miter guage.

could you make a sled, or clap board to miter gauge, put a 15/16 block on it 15/32 away from the blade, cut, move notch onto block, cut repeat until done.

[Mike Goetzke]

(edited - sorry I was so amazed by Glenn's work I didn't notice he outlined the same method)

Another alternate is to use your TS scale. I'm not a pro but built a full set of cabinets for our kitchen a few years back and I had to do a similar thing. I happened to have a Wixey digital fence scale on my saw but I just wrote down the dimensions I needed on the trial piece and it was very east to repeat - even weeks later.

Mike

[glenn bradley]

Glen, are you doing the square pin holes with a square mortise bit? The irregular pattern is really lovely.

Thanks Bill. Correct, a well sharpened mortise bit and a mallet.

[Peter Hartman]

I think maybe instead of having the spacer 15/32nds from the closest edge of the blade, maybe I should have the spacer in my jig set at 45/32nds from the outside of the blade. that would get my first cut in the right spot then I could just put the opposite face up against the fence and it should come out perfect... right?

[Greg Hines, MD]

I am not sure why you could not use a modified fingerjoint jig for that. The finickyness of it would be that your key would have to be exactly the right size, such, that when you move the workpiece against one side of it, it cuts one edge of your slot, and then move your workpiece to the opposite side of the key to cut the other side of your slot. Then, with the key in a middle position, you can clean out the middle of the slot.

Doc

[Peter Hartman]

Yeah a finger joint/ box joint jig is how I started. This piece is 11 and 13/16ths long with 15/32nds on each end and between each dado and there are 8 dados. So my thought is that I could make the first 8 cuts, then flip the work piece so that the opposite face is on the fence/jig and it should come out perfect. The piece is "palindrome" Or at least it should be.

[Jim Becker]

A sacrificial fence on a miter is a must for this so you have a way to line up the cuts. An index block simlar to what one might use for box joints can also help when your spacing is even across the board. You might also consider cutting the edges with your standard blade first to define the areas to remove and then using the dado to hog out the rest visually using the miter fence to support.

[John Bomment]

Just thinking out loud so could be way off.
Not sure if I can explain this right but seems to me it could be done with two fences.
A sled or miter gauge with a 2' or so back fence then another loose board that will move back and forth against the back fence in between two stop blocks to give the width of dado you need.
Then the front movable fence would have a block like you would use for finger joints that you would use for indexing your dado's.

[John Bomment]

A quick drawing to help show what I'm saying.