Took me 7 years to figure out I was cutting dados wrong lol

I've been a cabinetmaker for like a decade and last Tuesday I was watching a random YouTube video at 2am and saw this guy using a different router bit setup for dados. Turns out I've been cutting mine way too deep on the first pass and then fighting to clean them up for years. Did anyone else learn a basic skill wrong and just never question it?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_ruby1mo ago

How many bad dados did I make before realizing you can just adjust the bit height instead of going full send every time?

max_torres441mo ago

Took me about four bad ones before it clicked. I kept thinking I just needed to go slower or use a different bit. Then I realized I was basically trying to chew through 3/4" in one pass like a madman. Once I started creeping the bit up maybe 1/8" at a time the results got way cleaner and I stopped burning up my bits. @the_ruby is right that it's one of those things you don't think about until you've wrecked a few test pieces.

robin5911mo ago

I was watching a guy on YouTube a while back who restores old wooden boats and he had a whole video about dados. He talked about how the guys in old shipyards would actually file a slight curve into the bottom of their chisels to make dados cleaner. I thought that was wild. But anyway, he also said something that stuck with me - that any dado cut is really just a series of shallow passes, not one big slot. You're absolutely right about creeping the bit up. I think I wrecked two boards before I read that and started doing maybe an eighth inch per pass like you said. It's one of those tedious steps that saves you money on bits in the long run.