Dado Blade

[Allen Murphy]

I have a Rockwell 34-160 that I want to cut dado's with. The arbor is 1"x5/8" (threaded) total, what blades would work give these limitations?

[Jamie Buxton]

Most any stacked dado set will work. Depending on how thick your arbor nut and arbor washer are, you might find you can't stack all the chippers on your arbor. That is, you might find your maximum dado width would be 5/8", or even 1/2".

[Don Jarvie]

You can leave the arbor washer off and just use the nut. Most dado blades are 8" so the nut alone will hold them tight.

The Freud I have doesn't have a true 3/4 so I go with 11/16 and move the fence over a 1/16th to make 3/4. The next setting is 13/16 which is a bit too big and most plywood is a hair under 3/4.

[Chris Tsutsui]

I think 5/8" bore is the american standard.

Lowes is beginning to clearance out a CMT dado set right now so you might want to check out where current pricing is because it's sure to fall. Just don't use all the chippers if you can't fit them.

The last time Lowes Clearanced out a Freud dado blade it went down to $40 and then they dissapeared.

[G Douglas Fowler]

You can leave the arbor washer off and just use the nut. Most dado blades are 8" so the nut alone will hold them tight.

The Freud I have doesn't have a true 3/4 so I go with 11/16 and move the fence over a 1/16th to make 3/4. The next setting is 13/16 which is a bit too big and most plywood is a hair under 3/4.

That is true but there is an advantage to leaving arbor nut washer/stabilizer on: when you tighten the nut the dado stack will not shift or rotate slightly. With the washer/stabilizer off the stack does have a tendency to shift and the wing of one blade backs against the tooth to the adjoining blade. This can cause a minor change in the thickness of the stack. At least that has been my experience.

[Kevin W Johnson]

I think 5/8" bore is the american standard.

Lowes is beginning to clearance out a CMT dado set right now so you might want to check out where current pricing is because it's sure to fall. Just don't use all the chippers if you can't fit them.

The last time Lowes Clearanced out a Freud dado blade it went down to $40 and then they dissapeared.

They are clearancing all the CMT blades at at least one Lowes near me. The dado set is still $76, and none of them have budged in price at all in weeks and the clearance price is still really close to regular price. Lowes ('round here anyway) just doesn't take the same approach to clearance as does Home Depot.