Dado set opinions

[Mike Ontko]

I have an Oshlun set that I got on sale from Rockler, I believe. Like some of the others mentioned here it has the bat ears as well, but I believe the purpose of that is for scoring the surface of whatever material your cutting through, in order to minimize any tearout. I haven't experienced any tearout and the bottom of the cuts come out nice and smooth.

[Robert Engel]

Budget is not a concern.

Love it.

I've only used Freud and have the same issues. Its not the brand its the sharpening service.

Amana served you well why change? Forrest is supposed to be the best, so spare no expense and so go for it.

Aman, CMT, Freud, Forrest - they will all cut flat -- until until you get them sharpened.
So unless you can find someone better, you'll be right back where you started then a $300 set won't matter.

So far I have not found a sharpening service around me that can get a dado set perfectly flat, but they are good enough for me because I generally clean them up with a router plane anyway.

[Greg Hines, MD]

Which one? The 208 or the 508? I assume th4e 508 (for no particular reason).

Mine is a 208M set.

[Jim Dwight]

I do not have anybody close to me that sharpens carbide blades so I send them to Ridge Carbide. I am very happy with the results. The blades come back better than original. They also make a dado set. I use the less expensive Freud and it makes flat bottom dados but when it needs sharpening it will go to Ridge. If I wanted to buy a "price is no object" set, I would at least seriously consider the Ridge. But I will probably never do that. I've always gotten good results from Freud blades and their prices are fair. I see no reason to spend roughly twice as much on other brands.

[Cary Falk]

I have the Delta 35-7670/Dewalt DW7670 and am very happy with it. I got mine for about $100.

[Rod Sheridan]

Neil, I have an FS Tool set, perfectly flat bottoms, looks like it was cut with a grooving cutter on the shaper except for the 2 very small score lines................Rod.

[glenn bradley]

What kind of material are you using it in? I have the DeWalt, a CMT that closely resembles the Freud SD-208 and I have the Freud SD-508. All leave bat ears but, the DeWalt and the Freud cut very clean at the edges of fray-prone materials and veneers. The CMT does pretty well and is relegated to materials that I don't want to use the 508 on.

If you want to avoid bat ears you have to go with flat top grind outer plates. I read that Forrest and Infinity claim flat bottom dados (so does Freud) yet, they still have specific outer plates for left and right which makes me believe they have a geometry that cuts a clean sidewall. I assume they employ a full height raker on the outer plates to avoid the bat ears(?). Maybe an owner could confirm. The bat ears on the SD-508 are so small as to be invisible once the joinery is complete. The DeWalt is darn near to that. The CMT is pretty obvious.

[scott spencer]

Every stacked dado set that utilizes bevel teeth on the outside cutters (which is all of them AFAIK) has bat ears to some degree. Those beveled teeth must protrude slightly above the raker teeth of the chippers in order to have any scoring effect. Some of the better sets minimize the depth of the bat ears by staggering some flat rakers between the top beveled teeth, but there's still a groove on each side of the cut. Claims of perfectly flat bottoms pertain only to flat top grinds like those found on box joint sets....but they will inherently have more tearout on cross grain cuts.



Bat ears (Oshlun set):



This pic shows very small bat ears, but they are there (DW7670 set):