One of my go to joints in woodworking is the stopped dado for mounting shelves. Making shelving has been a regular necessity for much of my adult life. Even some of my books from the days of high school are still resting on my shelves. Candy has a similar disposition.
The appearance of a through dado doesn’t look as pleasing as a stopped dado with a curved detail on the shelf:
Stopped vs Through Dado Shelves.jpg
A similar effect can be accomplished on a through dado with molding added on the sides covering the dados. Different ways to do what pays.
A recent musing about using the Stanley #39 Dado Plane to make a stopped dado sounded interesting.
> https://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?278860
A piece of scrap spruce was found and secured to the bench with a batten in a slap dash manner. More about this later…
Getting Started.jpg
A line was scribed where the dado was to stop. The plane was set down with the toe on the line to make a pencil mark where the nickers touched. Then the nickers were placed at the stop line and drawn back. This was repeated before a couple of shavings were made. Then the area at the stop end of the dado was cut out with chisels:
Side Wall Chiseling.jpg
The side walls needed to be cut a few times to achieve the desired depth. Using a 3/4” chisel caused a small chip out. After this a 5/8” chisel was used instead. There was no more chipping.
Margaritaville.jpg
After creating the end relief the first couple of strokes didn’t go to well. One problem was my set up had the clamps in the way of my right hand. The solution was to go lefty:
Going Lefty.jpg
A wider batten would have made this better for a right hander by allowing the clamps to be further from the work.
The plane still felt a bit sluggish. Time to do some sharpening. The nicker under the depth stop is held by two screws. The bottom one is a flat head that comes out easy with a small flat screw driver. The top screw has a head that used to be called a binding head screw in electrician speak.
#39 Removing Depth Stop.jpg
The top screw is blocked from removal by the depth stop. To remove it, the locking screw has to be removed and it needs to be run up to the top. When it gets there the top threads will disengage from the plane body and then the adjusting bolt can be turned clockwise to remove the bolt from the depth stop. The top threads are right hand, the lower threads are left hand. Interesting way to make a thing.
The nicker has what may be called a fingernail profile. It is rounded so as to slit across grain cleanly. This profile works great for marking gauges. Derek Cohen has some gauges he made in the Japanese style on his web site. If my recollector is working, these uses a rounded profile.
#39 Nicker.jpg
The blade was a bit odd to sharpen since it tilts back to the user’s left. It also seemed easier to sharpen it left handed as opposed to right handed.
Stopped Dado.jpg
After the sharpening it seemed to work much better. The forehead slapping discovery was that the chiseled part of the stop needed to be cut back to the blade, not just the nickers. DUH!
The arrow on the left shows where my right hand hit the clamp on the first couple of times pulling the plane back. Next time maybe the set up can have a little more thought before hand.
The arrow on the right is where using a 3/4” chisel caused a little chip out.
Another thought on this is for the chisel cutting it may be a good idea to move it back an 1/8” so the end can be cut cleaner with a chisel. The nose of the plane bumping into it leaves it a little ragged.
jtk
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Originally Posted by Mark Rainey
