Mastering the Dado Stack: No BS Advice for Woodworkers

welcome back to another installment of no BS  woodworking where we're talking about a saw   blade that can be kind of intimidating for new  Woodworkers the D stack Now reminder about this   series there is no fluff no sponsors and no BS  so the opinions in here are m in mind alone and   these videos are supported only by our website  so if you find Value head on over there so let's   get into it no BS right dat Stacks incredible  joinery tool grooves Doos half laabs tenons box   joints there's a million ways you can use these  but takes a little getting to do to get them set   up correctly so I'm going to take you through  the anatomy of them how to set them up and how   to use them safely I'm going to walk you through  a bunch of those joinery types and show you how to   do it so let's come into the table saw let's get  started with the anatomy of a data stack there's   two basic types of DS one is one that nobody  ever uses anymore called a wobble data stack   where you adjust the thickness by adjusting the  angle of a single blade and it wobbles when it   spins and then there's stack dat and that's what  everybody has they typically come in 12 or 24 to   2 24 Toth being a much finer finish 12 being like  a good allaround dado they consist of two outside   blades a left and a right there are chippers you  can either get fulls sizee chippers or partial   chippers and then there are shims those are going  to be plastic or steel they also have magnetic   ones that will stick to a blade and then this  one here has these nylon spacers which lock all   the blades and chippers into place which supposed  to be a lot safer for a saw stop and is approved   in the EU so let's come on in here I'm going to  show you how to stack them up put them on your   Arbor and how to dial in your thickness there's  a couple ways to dial in your D's thickness now   every dat stack comes with a piece of paper  in it that is going to have the measurements   of exactly what everything together is stacked  up I like to make a photocopy of that and put   it somewhere safe but let's say you don't have  that and you need to find the thickness of this   piece of wood now plywood is never this is 3/4  in Baltic but it is never actually 3/4 you know   it's 71 and that's tough to dial in CU typically  you'd be like oh 3/4 so the way you do this if you   don't have a pair of calipers is you take your two  blades stack them up and then you start stacking   chippers and it's really important that the teeth  aren't touching each other you want to make sure   that those aren't impeding your progress here  stack them up until you get real close so here   we are I can tell I'm really close but I'm still  underneath you basically just want to be able to   catch your finger now when you feel it so I'm  going to take a couple shims here and put those   on there that's going to be perfect so I can  tell here I just barely hit that so we're going   to stack that up on the arbor and that's going to  cut a perfect set data for this how do you do this   another way let me show you so the real easy way  to do this with a pair of calipers is we're going   to measure them this is 715 and I can look on my  handy dandy piece of paper that comes with your   dat stack I'm going to go with 233 seconds which  is 718 sorry for you Imperial people but metric   is better so we're going to stack this up this  says 23 30 seconds is going to be the left and   right Blade the outside blade it's going to be  three chippers one one lock spacer and a couple   shims so I'm going to stack that up right now  and then I'm going to show you how to put these   on the arbor correctly all right now when you're  stacking these on your Arbor a couple important   things to remember first of all no ring knife  take that out you're never making a through cut   with a dado you do not need a ring knife secondly  your blades have a specific side see this side out   right this side out left the important thing to  remember is that the teeth are facing you I I've   gotten a few customer service emails from people  who bought a new dat stack from us and complained   cuz the cut sucked it was because they had their  chip backwards and they didn't know it so then   you're going to put on your chippers but here's  an important thing to remember is if you're using   shims you don't want to stack them all between  one chipper and one blade you want to alternate   where they go so we'll put that on but something  to remember when you're putting on shims is they   can get caught in the threads of your Arbor so  you want to make sure that it's all the way on   and not caught in your teeth now come around here  on the side and let me show you how to line these   chippers up all right now this data is really  cool because it tells you where to align the   chippers but if you don't have that you just  sort of want to alternate your teeth so that   they're not lined up with each other like that  so I've already got my inside saw blade my first   shim and then I've got a chipper I've lined it  up with this yellow Mark here I'm going to put   in my next shim ensuring it's not hung up on the  teeth and then my next chipper one of the things   you want to make sure of is that your inside  chipper doesn't line up with these teeth see   right here you want that to be able to move freely  and you want the plates to be flat against each   other and the reason for that is if you were to  tighten this down and this tooth was hung up on   the gullet or the hook there and then you turned  it on it could come loose and then suddenly you   have a loose dat and if you see here in this  saw stop brake activation video that we shot   if the teeth contact each other they can actually  shatter carbide is very brittle they can shatter   which is actually why one of the reasons I love  this D stack is it's designed to be a lot safer   it keeps those from rotating we're going to put  on our last shim here and then finally our outside   chipper now a question I also get a lot here is  what if my D stack is too short for my washer what   you need to have is three threads so as long as  you have three threads you can forgo this washer   but if you can fit it I definitely would and just  make sure you can see three threads there and then   you're just going to tighten it down making sure  you're looking at it and all those plates are flat   against each other and there's no weird gaps in  between them which if there are you just loosen   it and fix that and make it right let me show  you how I stack this dat up and then we'll go   ahead and make this cut and hopefully we should be  the exact right width for this guy now this one's   so cool because we've got this left side here we  take these and we just lock it in like that we're   going to throw a shim on there and then we're  going to put our next chipper just like that it   lines up perfectly you can see those teeth they  overlap and then we're going to go ahead and do   the rest these magnetic shims if you get a d try  and get one with magnet itic shims cuz they are   really great cuz they just stick on there and  they don't get caught in the thread now we've   got that put on there I can see I've got about  two and 1 half threads once I tighten it'll have   it if you're like me you drop your nut down your  dust collection shoot all the time which is why I   have the one of these janitor Grabbers underneath  my table saw so what I like to do is I put it on   my finger like that and then I get it started and  then I reach my other hand in there and that keeps   me from dropping it so just a little tip to make  that a little bit easier for you so you don't drop   your nut in there you don't need to crank on this  just nice little tightness there and I've checked   there's no gaps there's no looseness these teeth  are fit in there perfectly so boom we are ready   to go and make a cut now there's two types of cuts  obviously rip and cross cut and I have seen people   push this over their Blade with just their hand  because it's not a through cut but there are so   many things that can go wrong when doing that  so you want to make sure you have a really good   quality push pad to make this cut and if you have  to make a huge cut like if you're doing this this   much especially if you have an underpowered  table saw you don't need to do that in one   pass you can do that in a couple passes there's  no reason you have to take a full depth pass so   let's take a quick pass and ensure that we have  a perfect setup for this thickness of [Music] plywood all right now if we did this right this  should fit perfectly which means that it slips in   relatively easy you feel a little bit of friction  but you don't have to pound it in so let's see yep   there we go perfect fit now if this was too big  you can actually use your shims to dial it in   now adding shims to your data stack would make it  bigger and increase the problem but you can figure   out how much you need to take away for example  there's a 0.4 shim that doesn't quite slide in   there but if it did you could remove that much  from your D stack remove a shim and dial in your   fit even better now let's talk about cross cuts  and different types of joinery like tenons half   flaps and rabbits so that's how you make rib cuts  and dial in your width but where a d stack really   excels is for joinery that's typically done in  a Crosscut manner I like to create a sled and   what I'll do because you lose your zero clearance  on your fence here is I'll take a piece of scrap   MDF and double stick tape it to my fence which  gives me a new zero clearance but when you're   cross cutting it is a perfect way to do like half  flaps uh Bridal joints mortise and Tenon and then   box joints here's a little sneak peek at the cats  Moses box joint jig that'll be out shortly so I'm   going to show you two ways to do it easiest way  is with a sled uh and then I'm going to show you   how to do it with an auxiliary fence the most  important things is how to get the right height   of your dato stack and how to exactly hit a line  I'm going to show you how to perfectly hit your   markting knife line so let's bring it in here  and I'm going to show you when using a DAT stack   for joinery there's only two things all of those  joints require two things and is that you hit your   perfect height and you hit your perfect width  I'm going to show you how to do that I'm going   to start by by making an arbitrary line here uh  this will be the height let's call this like if   we were making a half flp right so we need to hit  that line and then we need to hit a certain depth   so same thing we're going to hit a depth I'm going  to set that right there the other way to do this   would be with like a square and a marking knife  lock your marking knife in just like that we're   going to set our height which this Line's not even  really important cuz this is the one that's going   to matter the one on the end I'm going to show  you how to hit these perfectly first time every   time without any having to redo or creep up on  a cut it's actually very easy all right now to   hit your height whether you're using a sled or  a miter gauge you want to come up to the side   of your blade and raise it up you want to kind  of rotate it till you find the high point of a   tooth if you have an ATB alternate tooth bevel  you want to use that point there and raise it   up until you get real close and then when you're  up at your line like that you just rotate it and   see if it goes over now I can tell that I am just  hair's width over going to lower it just a little   bit and I can see right there that's the perfect  Apex of my blade and then I'm going to use the   nut on my wheel to lock that in we're going to  just check it one more time make sure it just   comes up and grazes that line so now let's talk  about width that is even easier to do all right   for setting your width it's even easier you find  the tooth that faces the inside and you take the   corner of that tooth and put it in that line just  like that same thing as the height you just want   it to barely kiss that line if you use a marking  knife or a mar marking gauge you can almost feel   it but you're just going to put that tooth right  on the line and then you're going to set a stop   block or hold it there and make your first cut  then after that it's really easy cuz the rest of   this it doesn't matter you can just sort of slide  it around and you can do it now with a d stack you   want to make sure you make a full pass and when  you come back through your blade you want to take   the board away or move it out of the way so you're  not making a pass and then coming back over over   cuz if it moves it all and you catch more material  it can kick it towards you so you make a pass move   it out of the way make a pass move it out of the  way just like that you'll see people they get lazy   and they just go back and forth and that's not  horrible but best practice is to get it out of   the way so now we have our tooth perfectly set we  have our height perfectly set reminder you don't   have to take that height all at the same time if  you're trying to take a huge cut you do not have   to take a full depth pass so we're going to take a  pass right against our line we're going to ensure   that's correct and then we're just going to do  the rest of that cut and we'll have a perfect half [Music] flap now look you can see we hit our  line perfectly there and perfectly right there   you can just see the perfect Last Remnant of  that line and then you know with all data STS   you're going to get like little lines from  the different chippers you can clean that up   uh with like a chisel or a router PL plane or  a hand plane a rabbiting block plane something   like that same thing with a Tenon you're going  to just hit your lines and do all that but let   me show you how to do it with a miter gauge and a  fence or if you're doing rabbits if you're doing   a rip cut let me show you how to do that with an  auxiliary fence now another really cool way to do   joinery with a d stack let's say you don't have  a sled and you want to use a miter gauge or you   just want some adjustability to dial something  in like on the edge like a rabbit or if you want   to do some tenin is an auxiliary fence like this  and some sort of fence clamps these are the ones   we sell over at cm tools.com and they can just  attach this board to the fence here all right   so now what's really cool about this is you can  set your height here so let's say we want to go   right to quarter inch that's right there now we  want to bring our auxiliary fence just over the   edge of our data stack and then we're going  to raise it up to right there on that Mark   make sure your fence is locked down and then  we're just going to raise it up until that Mark disappears so now what this is done is  it's going to ensure that we can we're   not going to ruin our fence one of one  of the things you have to make sure is   you don't bring your fence your actual fence  over the DAT stack so now we have a little   bit of back and forth adjustability  you can set the width of your D stack   here we've set our height and now we can  just run our board right over the top of this so now we have a perfect rabbit we didn't  risk ruining our fence and that's a really great   way to do Joiner and the great thing is it's  really adjustable you can bring it in or out   you can really adjust for size you can bring it up  or down cuz who cares if you eat up your auxiliary   fence and then last couple things about dat Stacks  when you're doing box joints remember you're going   to need a couple shims in there because you want  to just you want to hit that measurement dead nuts   you know whether it's quarter half inch whatever  um this is our new box joint I was alluding to   but this is just the Prototype the final one will  have a bunch of ball tick in there um so I digress   did that Verge on BS there that was a little BS I  don't know make sure you keep your paper or take   a photocopy of it that's so helpful to not have  to guess at that stuff make sure your dat stack   comes in a nice carrying case whether it's like  something like this molded plastic or a nice box   with foam inserts in it just make sure you get one  that has a nice case because that's going to be   important because you're not going to bust it out  all the time and if you let it sit for a long time   you're in a humanid environment maybe you could  just throw a little three in one oil on there just   to protect it when you put it away not a huge deal  um guys thanks for watching I'll link everything   that we talked about down in the pin comment and  description thanks for watching this nobs series   it's been really fun to get back on YouTube people  the comments have been great so thank you so much   for your support head over to camp tools.com  check out the website cuz that's what pays for   these videos check out the charity do all those  things stay safe in the shop have a wonderful [Music] day

Channel: Jonathan Katz-Moses

Views: 136,517

Keywords: dado stack, table saw, dado stack recommendations, woodworking, dado blades, setting up a dado stack, safely install a dado stack, how to set up a dado stack, how to use a dado stack, sawstop dado stack, 8 inch dado stack, dado blade, dado, how to use dado blades, table saw blades, how to install dado blades, woodworking tools, dado stack table saw, best dado stack, sawstop, woodworking tips, how to use a dado, best dado blades

Id: Kx7utXpC2BU

Length: 14min 44sec (884 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 29 2023