Dados in hundreds of parts

[David Jirak]

I am manufacturing a product for my wife's quilt shop business. The base of which is 1/2" baltic birch that is 3" wide by either 12" or 20" long with a dado that is 1 5/16" wide by 1/4" deep dado. I've been cutting these on my table saw with a stacked dado but after doing over 1000 and many more to come, I'm open to your ideas on machinery that would make this repetative process easier and faster. Or am I left with pushing it through the table saw? Any ideas will be appreciated. Thanks a bunch.

[Mike Tagge]

Probably some sort of CNC machine or hired help. If I was doing this (and perhaps you already do this) I would gang dado everything and optimize it on full sheets or broken down sheets anyway. Run one long dado on a ripped to length board and then rip it to width. I feel like this would be a bit faster than the opposite as I tend to run dados slower than blades. YMMV

[Bill Dufour]

radial arm saw.
Bill D

[ChrisA Edwards]

You could do that on a ShowFox W1812 Moulder ($1500) plus a set of blades the width of your Dado ($120).

Where do you live? I'll rent you mine....

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Let's say you'd take a piece 25" wide. Using a radial arm saw make the necessary dados and then rip to 8 pieces width.

I have been doing dados with a stacked dado head on my tablesaw. I just bought a RAS from a friend so I can do dados on it.

[David Jirak]

Thanks Mike. Good idea.

[David Jirak]

Thanks for the offer Chris. I live in Portland, OR.

[Richard Coers]

Are you running 8' long rips then cutting them to length? Why aren't you using a power feeder? A CNC shop would love to quote that part for you. That's the kind of quantity they like and may be way cheaper than investing in new machinery! Well that, or buy your own CNC router.

[David Jirak]

Thanks Richard. I'll look into that.

[Jim Becker]

I'd run that on my CNC, but as was noted, if you can do the dado/groove in the material before cutting the individual pieces, that's more efficient. Think through the steps and optimize your material handling and cutting.

[Rod Sheridan]

Stock feeder on a shaper or table saw.............Rod.

[Mike Kees]

My vote is almost the same as Rod..1.Mill dado with shaper and power feeder. 2. Cut to length with a t.s. What kind of t.s. do you have ? You need either a crosscut box,sliding table,or a slider. Probably in that order, think good,better,best. As others have stated it would be most efficient to mill the dado in the strips and then cut to length. Sounds like both lengths of your product have the same dado size and placement.

[Brad Shipton]

I would take a step back and consider if there is a different joiner instead of a dado. I made a ton of half dado lattice using a dado head, so I know your pain. If not, lots of good suggestions.

[Rick Potter]

How about doing it the other way around? Cut your pieces on the TS, and get another cheap TS off CL to do the dado's with. You could set it up with a semi permanent featherboard setup, and feed one after the other.

Even better, Jessems stock guides would be perfect for this. I used them for cutting slots for cabinet drawer bottoms. Just shoved one after the other. They were held down and against the fence automatically.

[J.R. Rutter]

Is the dado across the width or length?

If lengthwise, then I'm with Rod and Mike: run them through the shaper with a power feeder.

[Doug Garson]

I think technically if it is lengthwise it is not a dado it is a groove. If i'm wrong I predict I'll be corrected in the next post.:p

[Mike Kees]

Don't worry Doug ,after I posted how to do it and reread my post I was wondering the same thing..

[Joe Jensen]

Depending on how well tooled you are (do you have a shaper and power feeder, etc). One option would be to have molding vendor make a bunch of "molding" with groove in it and you cut to length. I have a shaper and power feeder and if I understand your need I would cut strips to the width you need for the part parallel to the groove and I would groove them with either a dado head in a table saw with a power feeder or on a shaper with a power feeder. Then cut to length. You could probably have someone make a knife for their molder for $100 and then I bet they would run strips you provide for very little per foot.

[Doug Garson]

I think we need a photo to confirm whether it is a dado or a groove, otherwise we are just spinning our wheels trying to solve a problem without understanding it. Oh, and I acknowledge my prediction didn't come true.

[Martin Wasner]

I swear I responded to this.

Job it out to someone with a cnc.

Or, cut the parts to size and powerfeed them through a tablesaw

[Timothy Orr]

Could you build it up from 1/4” pieces instead? Rather than remove the dado, add two 27/32” wide 1/4” thick strips spaced 1-5/16” apart to the base piece of 3” wide 1/4” thick material, nail or glue then cross cut to length?

maybe gang rip from the longest 1/4” stock you can get on a molder like others have suggested? Might be more efficient, especially if you can source inexpensive 1/4” stock rather than 1/2” ply.

Just a thought.

Tim