New Product Review   —  "CMT Pro Dado Set"

   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."

 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.

   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.

   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....

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.

   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.
  

    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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