Freud dial-a-dado: is this as good as it gets?

[Sam Shankar]

Hi folks, I bought one of those fancy freud dial-a-width dado stacks. Works fine, but it does leave little grooves on the surface when I'm making wider cuts for lap joints. It looks like they come from the outer cutters, which seem to have a teeny high point on the outside edges. Is this as good as it gets?

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[Jamie Buxton]

Every dado stack I've met does that. The theory is that the tips at the edges score the wood so that the chippers in the middle remove wood cleanly.

Don't worry about the effect of the grooves on your half-lap joints. There's still lots of glue area.

[Jim Becker]

Yes, that's normal for many high end dado sets...Forrest especially. The outside disks have a very high angle on the outside tips to cleanly slice the edges of a groove, dado or rabbit that project just a hair beyond the chippers.

[Tom M King]

The low priced Dewalt, one of several types I own, produces the nicest flat surface. It doesn't have the "ears" that the Forrest does, but doesn't cut as clean an entry into plywood as the Forrest. Ones that adjust by tilting the cutters are the worst at leaving lines, especially the wider the setting.

[Sam Shankar]

Ok thanks everyone!

[Bill Dindner]

Really liked the cut quality of the dial a Dado, unfortunately the arbor on Sawstop PCS is too short to accommodate it. The slight grooves as everyone has said are normal.

[Jeffrey Martel]

Hi folks, I bought one of those fancy freud dial-a-width dado stacks. Works fine, but it does leave little grooves on the surface when I'm making wider cuts for lap joints. It looks like they come from the outer cutters, which seem to have a teeny high point on the outside edges. Is this as good as it gets?


As was said, I haven't found a stack that doesn't have that. If it's going to be a show face (like an extra long through tenon), you can make it slightly oversized and clean it up with a rabbeting block plane. Or a router if you don't use hand tools.

[Mark e Kessler]

You can have them ground off if you like but you will loose the "scoring" ability.

Also I can't remember the dimensions but Ridge Carbide had the lowest "Bat ears" of a few different brands, Freud had the highest. I bought the Ridge

mk



Hi folks, I bought one of those fancy freud dial-a-width dado stacks. Works fine, but it does leave little grooves on the surface when I'm making wider cuts for lap joints. It looks like they come from the outer cutters, which seem to have a teeny high point on the outside edges. Is this as good as it gets?

428515