Can I cut dado with sliding miter saw

[Mike Spanbauer]

Many miter saws have a depth stop on them (Makita, Dewalt, Milwaukee, more?) and my DW708 has a screw on the right side that limits the depth of cut (effectively creating a dado). I am NOT advocating this as a good solution, just that it can be done.... most just don't realize that it's there as I myself did not for 3 years

mike

[Alan Ennis]

Hi, this is my first post here, great site.
Funnily enough I just tried this the day before I found this post. I just moved house and there is a garage on the side that I am setting up as a workshop to teach myself some carpentry/woodwork. After getting a little frustrated with the router table for dado's and rabbets I realised that the Mitre saw had a depth stop ( http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav/sk...?skuId=9296068 ) in it and I could use that.
It didn't work so well.
Firstly it is impossible to use any kind of normal size ruler to measure the distance between the blade and the bed as the guards and all the gubbins in the head get in the way, so I took a piece of 1x2 and chiseled it down to the right size and set the blade on that to set the depth stop. Couple of problem here, there is a bar with a hole in it that acts as the depth stop, when it is in place the bolt goes through a hole in the bar. To engage the depth stop you move the bar so that the hole is out of alignment with the bolt, thus stopping the head. The problem is that the bar is flexible, you can push on the cutting handle and the bar will flex, this makes the depth somewhat variable resulting in quite pronounced grooves in the bed of the dado, there will always be cleanup after the cut but this was a little excessive. Another problem is that the blade, guard, motor etc are all at the end of the arm ( as somebody in a previous post pointed out ) this makes for a setup that flexes as you slide the saw to and from the fence ( presumably something that radial arm saws fix ) also the walls of the dado were not square with the fence. My saw is out of true you would say except that each wall was out in a different direction, presumably due to movement in the slide or blade.
I'm going back to the router.

The problems I encountered:
Hard to set the depth accurately
Depth was not consistent,
Walls and bed were all out of square with the fence and each other due to flexing and movement.
No two cuts were the same
The router is not so scary to be doing that close much work with, also, not so loud.

Thanks for all the great advice on the site and I hope this helps.

Alan.
Ireland/Dublin

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

Depends on the arbor doesn't it?
Is it long enough?

[Bruce Benjamin]

The kerf angle on most TS dado sets will have a positive kerf angle and RAS, SCMS, and other MS use 0 to negative. I don't think I would try this unles you could find a negative kerf angle dado blade, which might be a tough find.

A dado blade with a negative rake isn't hard to find at all. Infinity makes the best dado blade available that is consistently rated at the top of the heap in reviews and it has a 5 degree negative rake. http://www.infinitytools.com/products.asp?dept=1167 I have it and love it.

I have a RAS that is mostly used for dados now and this is the dado set that I use on it. I have several other methods of making dados including my tablesaw, my router table and my router on the EZ Smart. But for fast and quick dados, half laps, and rabbets within the range of my RAS, the RAS is my go-to tool. If you follow Bob Feeser's safety advice it's safer than a tablesaw, in my opinion. The router on the EZ Smart is still the safest way out there but I'm very comfortable with the RAS and the Dadonator.

Bruce

[Alan Ennis]

I forgot to mention that the when the work piece is up against the fence and you prevent the cutting head from going all the way through with the depth stop then the blade will only cut about 90% of the way through the width of the piece. So you have to have a scrap piece of wood between the work piece and the fence, so if that isn't square etc.. etc...

Alan
Ireland/Dublin