Don't Buy a 6-inch Dado Set

Unfortunately, some table saws can only use 6” dado blades and using anything larger makes them unsafe (as per the manufacturer). It seems that you only needed an extra 1/2” of height, which reminded me about a post I saw a while ago of someone using 7 1/2” circular saw blades to make a dado substitute:

Since you already made a new sled, I guess it’s now a non-issue though.. but it might be an idea to think about for others facing the same situation.

(Article can be found at http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/workshop/dado.html )

Cheers,
Brad

-- Brad in FL - To be old and wise, you must first be young and stupid

I had been getting by fine with my six inch stack, but then I bought an I-Box and tried cutting box joints in some 4/4 stock I had sitting around. That meant the blade had to raise 1-3/4”. With the washer, that just wasn’t going to happen.

However, I might be able to squeeze an extra 1/2” by taking out a bit more stock off the back side of the throat plate. Of course, I can always plane the stock or rip it, but the short of it is, bannerpond1 is right – why not avoid limitations from the get go?

The up side is, the six inch stack does fine for 3/4” stock, and I’ll have a couple dado sets to spread the [light] work load across.