Loud noise coming from.....dado stack??

Well, I called Powermatic, and they said the noise is not normal, but he didn't venture a guess as to what the noise meant. Awesome.

I know it is meant to use dado stacks, it came with a dado insert, so that's a good sign Sidebar: the sawstop is not meant for dado stacks, RHaynes!? What?? I usually get all hot and bothered when I hear "sawstop" but that is a real turnoff

I decided to check the blades to make sure they are flat, in case they had somehow come into contact with the sun and warped. They are still flat.

Tried it without the blade stabilizer (counter-intuitive logic) and that didn't help or hurt.

Checked the belt with the stack on, and the tension was just fine. Turned the saw on without the belt cover to see if I could notice any wobbling, and it looked alright, but I didn't look for long because the noise was scary and I felt like at any moment something would fly back and knock me out.

Thought about trying the two outer blades without any chippers, but that's always seemed like a bad idea…seems to me the outer blade teeth are too close to each other to do this without risking serious damage to the teeth, so I skipped that test.

Definitely not the bearings, I am measuring runout at .0035, pretty darn good. The only noise it makes with a standard blade installed is a sweet, sweet whispering whir. So, I thank my lucky stars there.

Thanks for all the tips, I checked it all thanks to your suggestions, but maybe it is time to just get an upgraded dado stack. Bleh, they are expensive and I am trying to save up for a really sweet bandsaw. Kinda bummed!

Yeah, that's just not correct. Or, SawStop is making plenty of money selling special dado blade-specific brake cartridges for saws that aren't supposed to use dado blades. But they do say that the dado blades used on the saw should be 8" diameter, steel, non-lacquered and preferably the kind with non-disc chopper blades. Here's an excerpt from the manual for my saw:

"WARNING! Only install 10 inch blades or 8 inch dado sets (with optional dado cartridge and optional dado table insert). Do not install other size blades or dado sets. Do not install molding heads or other non-standard cutters. Use of these non-standard blades or cutters may cause serious injury."

Would be pretty weird for them to put all this in there if e saw couldn't use dado blades. Or for their YouTube channel to show guys using their saw with dado blades installed… But then again, Donald Trump is running for president so weirder things HAVE in fact happened.

Shadowrider…winner winner, chicken dinner! I put the outer blade on and tried to shimmy it up and down, and I can detect vertical play. It's ever so slight, but definitely there. I put my Freud industrial back on and no play at all… mystery solved!

Wow, really surprised. That bit of play is multiplied several times over depending on how many chippers I have on there. Even with two blades (outer and inner and NO chippers), it would be enough to throw the balance off and cause the noise.

There ya have it folks. If your dado stack (or any blade) is loud, check to see if the arbor hole isn't too darn big!

My old Delta had a very tight arbor shaft, I recall having a lot of blades get stuck when trying to slide them on…a real pain in the buns sometimes, they could really jam on there. Didn't even cross my mind that this could be a problem. Nice work shadowrider! Thank you!!

Now I should call the guy who bought my old saw and gift him this dado stack…