Dado cutters for Radial arm saw DW721. Help.

[whoops!]

Apparantly the story is....They used to do dado heads and baskets for all the Radial arm saw's, and then came Electronic Braking of the blade. This was definitly a much needed development, but it had serious drawbacks for the RAS's, the speed of the deceleration caused the heads to unwind themselves resulting in the blades flinging themselves off the arbour. Happened a few times apparantly resulting in serious injuries. They ceased production of the dado heads for all the models.

Just a few years after they replaced the electronic braking with mechanical braking ,which proved to be a much less violent way of slowing the blade, to the degree that they decided to re-introduce the Dado heads but ONLY for theDW720,laving the 721 and the 728 without.

Which brings me back around to my little story of woe, I've just purchased a Radial Arm Saw almost specifically for the task of tenoning,and lo and behlod I can't get hold of dado cutters from dewalt (my model is post electronic breaking and they still listed the dado cutters with a catalogue number.)AND so if there is anyone out there with a set for sale along with any other accessories then please PM me. My smile would light up this gloomy afternoon!!

If anyone has the years of the electronic/mechanical braking please let us all know as I know I'm not the first person to come up against this chestnut.

Thanks,

Decklan

 

[seaco]

Hi Decklan

Do you have to stick to Dewalt I use a 8" Freud set in my Unisaw at 5/8" bore what bore is your RAS?

 

[bob_c]

I also use a Freud 5/8" bore set.works very well on my saw which is made by Sears,a big improvement over the wobble saw i bought with the saw..Have you checked the length of the spindle, i can fit the full width on mine,the outside flange is usually left off when using a dado.

 

[whoops!]

evening Seaco,

The arbour size is 20mm on my RAS, (the 720 is 16mm,) I have a set of freud Dado cutters for my table size but the bore is 30mm. I'm not happy in using reducers with Dado's. I didn't realise Freud did them in 20mm.
Thanks for that,

The other problem though is the basket. One can use the standard blade guard when the blade is in the vertical position, but when the blade is laid over in the horizontal plane the standard blade guard is too big, thus an accessory basket is required.

Which RAS do you have?

Decklan

 

[bob_c]

I think you,ll find Freud dados are usually 5/8",16mm ,1" and 30mm bores.
CMT dont appear to do a 1" size.
Forrest in the USA do a 1" one called the Forrest dado king whick is well thought of over there.

 

[seaco]

evening Seaco,
I didn't realise Freud did them in 20mm. Thanks for that,
Decklan

Decklan

I think you'll find that it's 16mm nearest to 5/8" not 20mm... I can now see your problem, maybe you could get a 16mm set and then have an engineer bore them out to 20mm after all it's only a 4mm increase

I don't have a RAS...

 

[whoops!]

Cor, my imperial measurements have gone for a burton haven't they? But Seaco, That's definitly the way to go, and I think I will get on with that next week.( should have been a brickie, you just don't get these type of problems with the other trades, they just turn up with levels, trowels and hammers and off they go...!)

Any ideas for the basket?

Decklan

 

[seaco]

Any ideas for the basket?

Decklan

If you could post a few pics of your RAS we could come up with a solution...

 

[whoops!]

Thanks seaco, just got to work out how to put pictures up on the forum. Did it 2years ago with a table I had made, but I seem to have completely forgotten how. I shall get them up as soon as though.

If the basket is still available for the 720, then I think that the machining the bore size is again the way to go.

Thanks,

Decklan.

 

[seaco]

how to put pictures up on the forum.

Decklan.

Look here mate https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/forums/view ... hp?t=14776

 

[whoops!]

thanks for that,I'll get busy.

 

[Inspector]

You could skip the dado totally and just use a normal blade.

Cut the shoulders of all pieces with the blade in the vertical position using a stop to locate.

Turn the saw so the blade is horizontal and cut all the top cheeks of the tenons.

Secure a thickness of wood on the table equal to the tenon and blade thickness. Cut all the lower cheeks and you're done.

3 setups and 4 cuts per tenon leaving smooth surfaces on all faces.

 

[whoops!]

Thanks for that inspector, a good time worn technique. One of the reasons I want dado cutters is that when working with thinner slats, ( tenoning,) It's very quick to just lay the blade on its side(horizontal plane)make the cut, turn the piece over and repeat the cut. Can be slightly messy depending on the wood.

But for the bigger tenons your method is the one to go for.

Decklan.

 

[Inspector]

Oh. I thought you wanted to take multiple 3/4' wide cuts with the blade vertical. Works but requires lots of passes and the surface isn't the best.