Jason Buresh
04-27-2020, 6:49 PM
So I had a member of a different forum ask me about a picture of my 45 I posted and he said he wanted to buy one to make some dados but they are hard to find and expensive and if I had any thoughts on how to cut a dado without one. I did some thinking and I believe I may have an answer. I am not sure if this has been done before, but I thought it was clever
I took a piece of scrap and the piece I wished to cut a dado in and traced the edge of my workpiece into the scrap. I then made 2 shallow cuts with a hand saw inside the pencil line. I then took a chisel and cleared out the waste, doing my best to stay flat. I then measured out where I wanted my dado to and marked a centerline. Using a bit and brace with a slightly smaller hole than the chisel I was going to use I drilled an angled hole on my mark. I then drive the chisel through the hole so it protruded slightly and that was depth of cut. I did a few test passed and this works! A tap on the back of the chisel sets it a little deeper for the next cut until you get to depth. Obviously if you made an angled cut in front of the chisel it would help with chip extraction but I didn't get that fancy.
431598431599
Now I am not saying this is the world's greatest thing since sliced bread, but if someone was in a pinch it wasn't the worst tool I have ever used. If you did a half lap instead of a dado you could even use it to make a dado for a drawer bottom in the side pieces.
Obviously this is only good for one time use but it didn't take long to make and it was just made from scrap wood.
I am not saying I don't prefer my 45 or that this is good for making lots and lots of board feet of dados. But, if I was in an absolute pinch it did the job.
I took a piece of scrap and the piece I wished to cut a dado in and traced the edge of my workpiece into the scrap. I then made 2 shallow cuts with a hand saw inside the pencil line. I then took a chisel and cleared out the waste, doing my best to stay flat. I then measured out where I wanted my dado to and marked a centerline. Using a bit and brace with a slightly smaller hole than the chisel I was going to use I drilled an angled hole on my mark. I then drive the chisel through the hole so it protruded slightly and that was depth of cut. I did a few test passed and this works! A tap on the back of the chisel sets it a little deeper for the next cut until you get to depth. Obviously if you made an angled cut in front of the chisel it would help with chip extraction but I didn't get that fancy.
431598431599
Now I am not saying this is the world's greatest thing since sliced bread, but if someone was in a pinch it wasn't the worst tool I have ever used. If you did a half lap instead of a dado you could even use it to make a dado for a drawer bottom in the side pieces.
Obviously this is only good for one time use but it didn't take long to make and it was just made from scrap wood.
I am not saying I don't prefer my 45 or that this is good for making lots and lots of board feet of dados. But, if I was in an absolute pinch it did the job.