Elena
holds the new CMT Pro Dado Set. It's a pretty package, and I had been told that the blade
set itself was really a new and improved product. So it was fun to set out and experience
the "product that was developed after surveying what pros wanted for their
cabinetmaking."
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My
"old" CMT set has always given me a real fine groove, so I was interested to see
the physical differences in the blades. The catalog bragged about reduced chance of
kickback and splinter free cuts. I could see design changes between the old and the new,
but I really would have to cut wood before I could say anything.
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Elena
has set up the new dado to give us a 3/4" cut. She makes cut in the length of the
small panel, and a "crosscut." across the panel.
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I was
blown away by our first test cuts. Never have I seen dados with sharp sides and smooth
bottoms — particularly in mediocre plywood. What a great dado set this new CMT
product seems to be — BUT....
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and a
big BUT it was: the width of the dado was all wrong. Using brass spacer bars, the cut was
about 1/4" too narrow.
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This is
where the "error" is. The chipper is marked as 1/4" but the body is made of
1/8" steel. To me, that had to be an error.
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In fact,
the error was on me. These instructions that Elena held had to be read to understand the
new way of stacking blades and chippers. They are different in this Pro Dado Set.
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This is a
shot of one small portion of their catalog page. I have placed the letter "A"
with a line to the view of their 1/4" chipper. The end tip is 1/4" but the
chipper body is 1/8". The "B"section shows the profile of both edge blades
and the 1/8" chipper. They are "normal."
The chippers and their wide teeth is what gives this Pro Dado Set the ultra
smooth bottoms. There is overlap of blade tips — no wonder the cut on the bottom is
absolutely smooth.
It does require a somewhat different setup. We will go through that — it's worth it.
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A month
has gone bye since Elena and I started this review. Each week she would ask "how is
it coming?" and "I would respond, I am still thinking on it." If you think
that was just my way to postpone it, not this time.
But the dado is so damn good with clean sides and bottom, that I wanted to
find a way that we could use it easily — and that meant coming up with a way
to set the width accurately each and every time.
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This table in the instruction sheet gives you the combination of chippers and outer blade
to make dados of many dimension between 1/4" and 13/16".
So it you measure your stock and it happens to fall on one of those
measurements, your set up is done. Facetious I am, cause it never works that way. Come to
next page and let me explain my answer to the new CMT Pro Dado Set — it is
worth it.
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