Dados and rabbets are mainstays of woodworking, but you will face challenges every time you want to cut them into large pieces of plywood and particleboard. These challenges crop up whenever you're building cabinets, bookshelves and other large case goods, and they're the reason I designed my ultimate jig for your plunge router: the dado engine.
A good dado blade works very well indeed, but you have to spend considerable time removing your usual tablesaw blade, installing the stack of dado cutters, then testing and adjusting them to produce the precise width of groove you need. Besides the effort required, the operation also puts your tablesaw out of action for regular cuts. Dado blades demand a large amount of floor space for sliding project parts from one side of the tablesaw across to the other-a job that's not always easy to do safely.
Then there's the hassle of preparing dados to accommodate the unpredictable thickness of veneered sheet goods. So-called 3⁄4"-thick plywood is never quite that thick and never deviates from its nominal size in predictable ways.
The dado engine jig I have designed lets you cut tight-fitting and accurate joints quickly and safely in all situations, regardless of the thickness of the plywood you're working with. It does this job with nothing more than a vacuum-equipped, mid-size plunge router spinning a bearing-guided, flush-trimming bit. Performance is almost dust-free.
Download the plans (Illustration by Len Churchill)
Watch the video:
1 Comment
In regards to the video clip on creating dados, the sound was coming through, but the picture was not playing. Cheers