I've never tried that. I have had to use just the two outside cutter blades before. Is that too wide?

 

Don - your instincts are correct - the "safer" alternative is the way to proceed. Running a dado head without both outside blades in place is dangerous as well as producing an inferior cut. The outside cutters create the walls (left and right) of the groove while chippers remove interior material. With only one primary blade, the side with just the chipper will produce a ragged and irregular wall on that side of your groove and the spinning head will be out of balance and unpredictable (the dangerous part).

Use your standard blade and move the fence a bit - make a test cut or two on a piece of scrap and you can dial in perfect fit.

Tom

 

if it is centered ,
i cut from one side ,
and then the other ,
makes it perfect center .

 

Tom's on the money with this one. Never used a dado without the two blades

 

How about the two outter blades, with a spacer.. no chippers?

 

Both outside blades, with or without spacer is fine. Off set the teeth so they do not interfere with each other.

Go

 

Personally, I would not consider using a dado stack without both end pieces.

I have often cut dados by making multiple passes with a regular saw blade and that is what I would recommend.

As an FYI, this procedure is a little easier if you have a kerfmaker. Search this site for information on kerfmakers. Most people make their own and there are a variety of styles to consider.

 

Is this odd size requiring you to use the 1/8" outer blade and the 1/16" chipper or the 1/32" chipper? If so you may want to make the first pass with the 1/8" blade and then reset the fence a 1/16" or 1/32" to finish the dado. I assume that the reason for the odd size is for glass or Plexiglas to be set in.

 

Thanks for all of the support for doing things the right way. I did in fact change out the dado blade and used my regular blade and then moved the fence over. You all have a good night.

 

Yep, not a good idea with the chipper on the outside. Me personally, I'd stack two identical 7 1/4" circ. blades to get thinner than 1/4".

 

chippers are not designed to cut. they are designed to clear waste between 2 already cut lines. so it would be a bad idea in all aspects to try that cut with the half dado setup. just use a regular blade, cut, realign fence, widen cut with a 2nd cut.

 

More dangerous than pooping over a live well,haha. Night Don.

 

for a similar cut I took 2 pieces of scrap 3/4" plywood the length of my fence and a little taller and screwed them to a piece of wood the width of the fence so that they sat over the fence and locked the whole piece into place with a clamp at the end. I then moved the fence so one side of plywood was just over the dado blade (3/8" thick) and slowly brought the blade up into the plywood. This allowed for a cut that was thinner then just the two outer dado blades together but thicker then a standard blade.