Outer dado blade for splines

[Tony Guillory]

Hello everyone, thank you for allowing me into the forum.

I am pretty new to woodworking and want to make picture frames with splines in them. I purchased a ripping blade with flat top blades but am wondering if the money is better invested in a dado stack. I would think that since flat bottoms are important for dado's that the blades would have flat tops. I would like to just use one of the outer blades for my splines.

Is this possible?

[Richard Coers]

Usually the outer dado blade is ground with all the teeth ground at an angle towards the outside. If you use it for a spline groove, there will be a small angle that the spline will not fill. It's up to you if that is acceptable.

[Ron Citerone]

For splines I would rather use the rip blade to get the flattest bottom for a picture frame. My Freud dado set has angled part on the outside teeth as Richard stated. Welcome to the Creek!

[Mike Wilkins]

Flat top ripping blade is the way to go. I have a full-kerf ripping blade that cuts a flat bottom groove all day long. 1/8" kerf.

[Tony Guillory]

Thanks everyone. I bought the Freud 10" x 24T heavy duty ripping blade. Can't wait to test it out tomorrow after hearing your advice!

[Charles Lent]

If you want wider, consider the Freud SBOX8 blade set. It will give you nice flat bottomed cuts in 1/4 or 3/8" widths. This blade set has two blades with offset teeth. Put them together with the writing facing out and you get one width. Put them together with the writing facing toward each other and you get the other width. The offset teeth of one blade fit into the gullets of the other blade when doing the 1/4" cut. There are other similar blade sets available like this set. I just happen to have the Freud set. I believe that they are all the same design. This blade set was designed to cut box joints, but could fill your need, if you want spline slots wider that what your new blade will cut. The attached photo shows how nice these blades cut. This was done with the 3/8" arrangement of the blade set.

Charley

[Lisa Starr]

I'll second the Freud Box Joint set. I have a second, small Table Saw dedicated to making Box Joints with this blade set mounted in it. It does a suburb job.

[Dave Seng]

It does a suburb job.

As opposed to a big city or country job...

Sorry - couldn't resist.

[Lisa Starr]

Thanks Dave... that will teach me not to proof read my posts.

[Jim Becker]

I will suggest that an ATB+R is the way to go. You want the shearing action of the ATB (Alternate Top Bevel) for clean edges here and the R (raker) for a perfectly flat bottom. A dedicated ripping blade may or may not give you the cleanest cut for your particular application.