Dado blades - "do YOU dado?"

[Deleted member 174758]

Wadkin have a very poor line up of new machines today as regards choice. I'd expect they cannot compete with the europeans.

They are all but out of business, having gone bust (yet again) been bailed-out (yet again) by Dalton's. I reckon they stopped being a force in the 1990s, really, which is a great shame. Some of their kit was truly the best on the market - not that I own any of it any longer........

 

[Dave54]

Seriously, beautifully made though it is, there are easier ways to make to make box /comb / finger joints with a router.

BTW have you ever seen the box joint cutters that wooden box makers used to use? Ten or more thick cutters mounted on an arbor with spacers - on the right machine (something like a vertical hauncher) they could cut 12in width of fingers at a pass

Only seen pictures of them, but my experience is limited to small workshop stuff really. It always amazes me what machinery there is, or at least was, to do one special jobs. I suppose that was in the days when measuring instruments and so on came in varnished wooden boxes.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

I suppose that was in the days when measuring instruments and so on came in varnished wooden boxes.

It was more a case of lemonade bottles, beer bottles, sometimes milk bottles, etc coming in wooden crates with wooden dividers. When I was a kid growing up aluminium cans for drinks were a real rarity - even Coke and Irn Bru came in glass bottles and the caps were either crimped on or stone screw-ins with rubber seals (like hot water bottles). It's easy to forget that plastic crates, plastic bottles, etc were really a 1960s thing which took a while to filter down to the smaller manufacturers. I think I last saw wooden Britvic crates about 25 years back

 

[Dave54]

I suppose that was in the days when measuring instruments and so on came in varnished wooden boxes.

It was more a case of lemonade bottles, beer bottles, sometimes milk bottles, etc coming in wooden crates with wooden dividers. When I was a kid growing up aluminium cans for drinks were a real rarity - even Coke and Irn Bru came in glass bottles and the caps were either crimped on or stone screw-ins with rubber seals (like hot water bottles). It's easy to forget that plastic crates, plastic bottles, etc were really a 1960s thing which took a while to filter down to the smaller manufacturers. I think I last saw wooden Britvic crates about 25 years back

I'd forgotten the wooden crates. They must have made millions of those! I've got one here somewhere. A "Beer at home means Davenports" crate. As you say, finger jointed. As an aside, the first drink in cans I remember was "Tango" when I was a kid in the early to mid 60s, and that was pre-ringpull. You needed a "Church key" triangular hole maker tool to get into it.
The world has changed since then. . .

 

[Norcon]

Plastic!

 

[gregers]

in my old workshop at work i had a wadkin saw and a planer/thicknesser the saw irrc still spun on for nearly a minute and the cutter block on the planer was in the region of 30-40 seconds.

the workshop got moved to another site and these were deemed obsolete and disposed of because of the costs involved of installing brake systems to them,i now have a combination machine which has a spindle molder included(never used) basically its a P.O.S.
saw guide is pants so i only really use it for reducing sheet material.the thicknesser does get used a lot but still nowhere near as good as the wadkin.

 

[Norcon]

Got my dado cutter fitted...
http://tinyurl.com/qxcr4yg

Aside from grooving from 8mm to 20mm it cuts a tenon in about 30 seconds.

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Got my dado cutter fitted...
http://tinyurl.com/qxcr4yg

Aside from grooving from 8mm to 20mm it cuts a tenon in about 30 seconds.

Or rather HALF a tenon. My spindle moulder cuts a complete tenon, both sides, with the scribes in the same time

 

[Norcon]

Yes that was a crappy tenon.
Have refined the setting for these...
http://s26.postimg.org/9xc50ejzd/Dado_Bopxes_2.png
To within a few thou to be precise.

 

[HERTS P&D]

Only 3 years late.

Andy

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Well, they are in Devon, you know...... Life is lived at a different pace down there, I believe.