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(in
) said:

| Toller wrote:
|| I am using my new RAS for real work for the first time today?
|| I am cutting lap joints with a dado set.
||
|| The instructions say to always pull the saw through the work,
|| never push it. But I can see the work much better if I push it;
|| pulling it puts the blade in the way when I position the material.
||
|| I have tried it both ways and it seems pretty much action either
|| way. What is the big deal about pulling rather than pushing?
|
| You _will_ pull the material up off of the table someday if you push
| through. By pulling through, the blade rotation forces the material
| dwon at the intersecting point of the table and fence. Optimum.

Y'know, I've been worrying over this since I bought my RAS back in
'72. In thirty+ years of cutting, I've only once had the blade climb
up on top of a workpiece. That was early in the relationship and it
scared hell out of me. Since then I've mostly cut by pushing the blade
through the work - and I've /never/ had a workpiece even try to jump
the fence.

I will admit that whenever I felt nervous going into a cut, I rigged a
hold-down to help constrain the workpiece from going anywhere; but, as
best I could tell, it was never really needed.
|
| My problem with a dado on a RAS is that the saw wants to climb over
| the top of the material and I'm constantly fighting that. I'm still
| convinced that there's nothing faster for cross dados and half lap
| joints.

I look at the dado on my RAS about the same way I suspect I'd look at
teeth in a shark. I've discovered that I can go fast enough (and with
greater accuracy) using a router and a guide jig.

BTW, Leon has designed an elegantly simple router dado jig - and I've
put his photos on a web page you can reach through the link below...

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/interest.html