Infinity dadonator

[David Romano]

A few months ago, I bought the Dadonator with the expectation that it cut flat bottom dados. I'd heard nothing but the best about this dado set. I finally had a chance to use it the other day. There are distinction ridges from each of the chippers as well as pronounced scoring marks left by the outside teeth. Tech support at Infinity gave a few suggestions, which I have not tried, mainly to determine which of the chippers is the problem. I can tell already though that it is all of them.

I'm not new to dado heads, so I know what I'm doing with the setup, clean arbor, teeth in each other's gullets, etc. Also, the arbor hole is precisely the same size as the arbor, no slop there. In fact it was a pain in the arse getting the blades on and off. There was absolutely zero tearout on 1/4" birch plywood, but that was the only good thing I can say. Anybody else have this trouble?

David

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

A good sharpening will solve that - - - unless the arbor hole was bored oversize. Then nothing will fix it.

[Tim Johnson]

I've used my dadonator blade for probably about two+ years without a problem. The outer two blades, due to the bevels on the teeth leave a slight line when looking down directly into the cut, but from the edge where the cut emerges, you can't distinguish any difference. Mine makes great, accurate, clean cuts. The only problem I've had is when using the shims, getting them up tight to the previous blade and not caught in the arbor threads, which leads to some slipping issues, but paying close attention when mounting has solved that issue. Give the company a call, I've always gotten great customer service from them when I had a question or concern.

[glenn bradley]

I've not dealt with Infinity but in general have heard very good things about how they take care of problems. You definitly have a problem of some kind there. My Freud does a great job with the very, very fine lines that Tim describes. My feeling from the posts here is that they will take care of you. Please let us know how it goes.

[David Romano]

The Infinity guy suggested that I send a photo of the dado cut, just as a sanity check. It'll take me another day or 2 before I can do that, but I'll post it here too.

david

[Jim Becker]

David, what kind of saw do you have? The reason I ask is that there are a few machines out there that have an, umm...unfortunate "feature" on their arbor that only raises it's ugly head when a stacked dado set is in use...a depression/groove in the arbor that lets a chipper settle off center, causing the problem you describe. Do tell what you're using for a saw...

[J D Thomas]

I tend to think it might just be your saw, unfortunately. I have a Dadonator and it make pristine, smooth-bottom dadoes every time. I'm using it on a Uni. I'm anxious to see any digipics you can post of your problem.

[Lewis Perry]

I had the same problem with my Dadonater.I have an older General 350 that came out of a cabinet shop. The arbor was worn enough that the blade did not fit snug on the arbor. I installed a new arbor and solved the problem. Now the cut is clean and the bottom is flat. CS at infinity was very helpful and offered to send me a new set if I could'nt solve the problem. I'm very happy with it now.

[David Romano]

The saw is a General contractor saw, the one that got popular a couple of years ago. The arbor is brand new, I replaced it last year. As I said in my original post, there is absolutely no slop in the arbor/hole. The fit is exact, so much so, I'll say that it is a PITA to get the blades on and off esp. since those things are sharp enough to cut you before you even touch them! Kudos to their sharpening at least. The Infinity guy suggested that possibly the arbor threads are coarse enough to allow the thinner chippers to settle in between and cause a runout. I don't buy it.

David

[David Romano]

Ok, I just did another test, this time with the whole stack. The first thing I noticed was that the blades were much easier to put on. Some of the chippers that I didn't use the last time (first time) went on a little harder. It seems the arbor hole needs to be deburred a bit by the arbor. Once I got all the blades on, I made several test cuts on every type of wood I had. Ash, Cambara, Jatoba, Pine, Hard Maple, and 3/4" Baltic Birch plywood. What I learned was that cross cuts show some of the problem I described - the chippers cutting at different depths and you see the mark from each one. But- this time it was much less than the first time. Also, cutting with the grain did not show the problem at all, the cuts were perfect. When making multiple passes, as when cutting lap joints, the scoring marks and "ears" were more than I expected. Not sure if they'd show in a glued up joint. Any comments on scoring marks anybody?

So my conclusion is a good one- Not perfect right out of the box, but after a little "conditioning", perfect rips and very good cross cuts.

David