How do you make tongue & groove boards

[dennis thompson]

I have to make a few tongue & groove boards for the back of a Welsh Dresser I'm making. I'm thinking I'll do them on my table saw with a dado blade. Is that the best way? Might a router table (I only have a very small table) be better? The boards I'll be working on will be 3/4" thick & 4 feet long,
Thanks
Dennis

[Cody Colston]

I'd do them on the table saw. The only way I'd do them on the router table is if I was using a matched tongue & groove router bit set and those are sorta pricey...at least the Whiteside version.

[Rod Sheridan]

I have to make a few tongue & groove boards for the back of a Welsh Dresser I'm making. I'm thinking I'll do them on my table saw with a dado blade. Is that the best way? Might a router table (I only have a very small table) be better? The boards I'll be working on will be 3/4" thick & 4 feet long,
Thanks
Dennis

Dennis, a shaper with a power feeder is the best way in my opinion.

If you don't have a shaper, a dado cutter in the table saw will work just fine.

Using feather boards to hold it against the fence when cutting the groove is a good idea.

Regards, Rod.

[Peter Quinn]

I have to make a few tongue & groove boards for the back of a Welsh Dresser I'm making. I'm thinking I'll do them on my table saw with a dado blade. Is that the best way? Might a router table (I only have a very small table) be better? The boards I'll be working on will be 3/4" thick & 4 feet long,
Thanks
Dennis

Can you do half laps or is tongue and groove necessary? T&G is easy on a shaper or router with a matched set.Its certainly possible on the router table or TS without specific tooling, but its more set ups. For just a few boards I guess any method will work. i like the half laps on a TS with a dado for ease of set up.

[Robert Reece]

If you do them on the tablesaw, setup a 1/4 dado and get the fence set so the dado is pretty close to the center. Run the board through twice - once with each face against the fence. Featherboards would be good to use. This guarantees that the groove is centered.

Then go about cutting the tongues and sneak up on the fit. When doing that remember to dado both sides of the tongue and then test the fit.

[Stephen Cherry]

Check out the last picture, very nice rear view:

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1576127#poststop