Welcome back to the channel, my name is
Mark and in today's episode I want to
show you how I set up my Diablo
5/8 inch arbor dado stack for my Delta
36-725
I purchased this DIABLO Freud dado stack
at my local Home Depot and I didn't use
it for about the first year. Frankly,
because I was terrified! I didn't know
how to set it up, I had never used one
before, and I thought there might be some
special hardware, especially including a
zero clearance plate, that I might need
before I could really get comfortable with
it. Let me show you how I overcame my
fears and what it took for me to become
comfortable with setting it up, because
now that I am, life is so much better! Now
let's talk about what a dado stick is
and why it's different and why you
should care. Now this is my miter gauge
from my Delta 36-725 that I've added
an auxilary miter fence to. That allows
for repeatable cuts. Now, as you can see
here, there's a single groove here which
has been cut by the blade. And what I
could do with this, on the other side, is
I usually have like a stop block that I
can attach along here using a face clamp,
and then I can mount this into the miter
slot on the Delta 36-725 and I can use
this to easily cut repeatable parts. And
it's very fast to set up and once I can
batch things out, it's so much easier. Now,
with a normal blade, you just get your
one kerf your one cut. The other thing
that's different if you try to do things
like this, like a half lap, -- this was
cut on a dado stack -- which means that
this face here and this face here is,
this is the shoulder and this is the
cheek are gonna be perfectly at a
right angle to each other.
On a normal saw, it won't be like that
it doesn't leave a flat bottom. Right.
Some of the things that you can do with
a dado stack is you can cut half-laps,
you can also cut rabbets, and you can
also cut dados. So for example this is a
dado that i cut as a test piece, and i
can use it to make very strong joints.
And generally speaking the dado will go
halfway through the thickness of your
material. Now this is 3/4" material
so this dado is cut in 3/8 of an inch
and then this remaining section here is
also three-eighths of an inch. Right.
The other thing you can do with the use
of a sacrificial fence is you can
actually cut a rabbet on the edge of it
if you're careful. So that you can make
like cabinets or things like that. For
example, this is a piece that I've been
working on recently where I've cut dados
where all these pieces are at. So there's
a dado here, here, here, here, here and here.
There's also a rabbet at the top here.
Right. And over here that lets me join
these pieces up very easily.
You'll also notice I was able to cut
these false fronts that are half-laps.
These are shaker-style false drawer
fronts that I was able to cut the half lap
here, as well as the rabbet that this
front here slips into. Now I was
concerned because I had never used a
dado stack. I've seen people use them.
They look really cool, but it was very
intimidating for me to actually get one
set up. And once I did it, once I had it
setup, all of my unreasonable fear was
gone. Now a healthy fear of your tools
should be required. Now don't get me
wrong you should have a healthy respect
and fear of your tools, it's what keeps
you alert and attentive. But the
unreasonable fear I had was immediately
dispelled once I realized how much more
efficient and effective I can be in
batching things out. So let's go over to
the saw and I'll show you some of the
things that I have done to trick mine out and then I'll show you how I set
mine up. Now those of you who have been
with my channel since the beginning can
recognize my Delta 36-725 which I
purchased exclusively from Lowe's. I've
had this for about a year and a half now.
It's a great saw, I love it very much, but
it actually done some modifications to
it. For example, this is the stock insert
throat plate which would go here that
came with the saw. I actually ordered a
couple of these custom-made
zero-clearance insert plates from a
maker friend off of Instagram. It's Matt
Plumlee over at @gotwoodwrkshop and
I'll leave a link to his page in the
description below. And what you can
see here, what this allows, once you cut
through the plate itself, is it allows,
nothing can come in here. Right. It gives
you an exact line of the kerf of what's
gonna get cut and it also has a space
for your riving knife in the single
blade setup which is nice.
The other thing I like that he's done is
he's actually cut out pieces on the CNC
for the leveling screw so you can
actually level the plate to the tabletop.
Now obviously this is the single blade
setup and so I'm gonna show you what you
need to do in order to get this puppy on
there. One of the things that I've done
is I've actually tailored this plate to
my 3/4" stack and it tells you: two
outside, two spacers, three chippers, and
0.03" in shims and I'll
explain that in a minute, but it's a
great reminder. And then I have a center
line for where the arbor is at. Before we
get to that, let me just take time to now
remind you if you haven't subscribed to
my channel feel free to do that if you
want to. I'm gonna leave links to
everything that I've purchased, which
includes: my zero clearance insert plates
from Matt Plumlee, my dado stack, and
anything else that you'll see in this
video. So let's go ahead and move over
there. Thanks for joining me I'm on the
right side of my Delta table saw right
now. As you can tell this is the gauge
which tilts the blade we don't want that.
This is the slot for storing the miter
gauge when it's not hooked up to an auxiliary fence. And this is the part
that we're really concerned about. This
is a screw that comes off and it's for
auxiliary storage of another blade, as
well as this black tool which allows us
to change out the blade itself inside of
the throat of the table saw. Now if you
just see -- once I finally get this off -- you can store a couple
blades here. Currently, I just have this
one and so what I'm gonna do is I'm
gonna take this piece off and I'm gonna
set these aside for a minute and I'll be
right back. Now of course, first things first: unplug the saw as I've done here! You
want to take off this throat plate here.
Crank your lift which is in the front
all the way to the top. you have the
Arbor flange and the Arbor nut, as well
as well as this brake here. This
will lock in place and lock the arbor
from turning. Push this in, turn the blade
until it stops, take the nut off. Now that
I have both my hands available I'm gonna
show you how that's done. Obviously be
careful because blades are sharp! Go
ahead and take this, stick it on the nut,
pull back, don't drop the nut, or you're
gonna be looking for it. Placing it here
take off the flange. Okay, this side goes
towards the blade, this side goes toward the nut
Pull up the lever for the riving
knife, pull the Riving Knife out because we
won't need that on a dado stack. Then go
ahead and grab the blade carefully! Pull
it out, put it on the side. Now, let's talk
about what a dado set is. Basically, it is
is: you have two outside blades, chippers,
spacers, and shims that make a composite
blade that's gonna go in here. This is
gonna make a 3/4" stack. So
what you do, undo this, set that aside for reference, take this blade
be aware of the direction of spin, the blade spins towards you. You can
tell by the big bright white arrows. Let
stick it down in there, shove it all the
way back. I like to keep two of the blades
right here just like this up at the top.
I'll come a handy later. Now the other
blade out set it aside. This is my point
zero point zero three stack of shims. I'm
gonna set that right here for later. Okay
I'm gonna take my flange from earlier
I'm gonna stick it right here, so I don't
lose it, and I'm gonna screw it on there.
And then I'm done with that side. Now I'm
gonna flip it over to the chipper side.
Okay take that off
and if we look back again, we need
two outside blades, two spacers, and three
chippers. So I'm gonna take the first
chipper: notice that the blade, there's a
blade on it. Right. That blade should be
coming towards you. Shove that over the
top, in between these two blades, on the red
one. Okay just like that.Okay this one
goes between this one. Right. There should
be two little nubs here, that it's nubs
here that line up. Okay I'm gonna pull
another chipper, another chipper, and I
need two spacers. This is a spacer. Shove
it on there. Okay. Push the stack all the
way back. Now this chipper, again blade
towards you, it's gonna go 90 degrees
opposite, 90 degrees perpendicular
to the one that you put on prior. And
again, it's got to go between two blades.
Right. Just like that, See that there. And
it can be a little bit frustrating. Okay
I still need one more washer, stick that on.
final blade (chipper). And this is gonna be the
kicker, final chipper, I should say. Okay,
you want to keep those in line a little
sandwich. It can be a little bit frustrating
at times.
Take this, stick that on there, set it
aside for later. With your final blade
the outside blade, again pay attention,
to the arrows. Take it like this right between
these two. Okay don't cut yourself! Stick
it in there... Oh hey push... oh you know what I
have actually messed up!
We need the shims. Shims go on after the
last chipper, before the outside blade.
Right, that's probably why I had such a
hard time. It's because it wasn't shimmed. Okay much better. Right. Okay
notice these teeth are lined up nubby
nubs outside red teeth outside red teeth.
Pinch you might hear a little bit of
it touching the vent here, that's fine
the (dust) sleeve or whatever it is. Now
take your nut and don't drop it, because if
you drop it you're gonna hate yourself.
Okay you want to keep it as close as you
can and just like a giant ice-cream
sandwich. Okay. Right there. Now we're
locked right there. Okay. Finger over.
Right. Take this. So let's just double
check it looks pretty good. Okay let's go
find our lock again. Now the final one. I just
lock it down. Okay. These are between. These are between these, they're definitely
between, that's pretty good. Right, From the front turn the wheel to lower the blade a
little bit. Stick your zero clearance insert plate over it.
and then I'll show you how to get it
where you want it. Just a minute. Now what
you want to do finally take this, take
this, put it back on the side over here
so you don't lose it. Now I own this
wonderful set of brass set up bars. This
is 1/16 this is 3/16, 1/4, 3/8, and 1/2.
Now since I'm working with melamine
that's 3/4 inch thick, I want the 3/8" thick (bar). So I'm gonna go ahead
place it over here, very carefully, lower
or raise the blade to where it just
barely comes over the top. And that takes
a little bit. Takes a little bit of
fine-tuning to get it where you want. So
I'm gonna go ahead and do that
off-camera and then we'll run a test
piece. Okay I've gone ahead and installed
my auxilary fence so I'm gonna go ahead
and run this piece through to put a dado
on it and to see if I can get these
pieces to fit into that dado.
I'd say that's pretty good, let's see if
it fits. It's got a little bit of wiggle
room but I assume that's for glue so
it's good enough for me. Thanks for
watching
