Morris Dovey wrote:
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.

(me)
You, obviously to me, probably, have a heavier, better built saw than
I. Mine was bought in the early 90's.

(Morris)
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.

(me)
Yep, a hold down clamp is hardly ever noticed, if it's doing it's job.

(me again, for clarity's sake!)
| 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.

Well, not exactly fighting it. Just bracing myself to stop it if it
does climb up. It's amazing how paranoid a screaming RAS will make you
after seeing it coming atcha' once or twice.

I'm still
| convinced that there's nothing faster for cross dados and half lap
| joints.

Yep.

(back to Morris now)

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...

(me and my grand finale.)
Leon's jig looks pretty good to me. Morris, there must be more than one
way to do just about anything. While I won't personally EVER recomend
pushing a RAS, that doesn't mean that I don't think it can be done. The
hold down clamp is a good deal. I clamp material to the table whenever
I feel uncomfortable with a cut. We should all be as careful in our
shops as possible. I am a loner in my shop more often than not. A man
can bleed to death pretty quickly from a saw cut. Luckily, my worst
power-tool injury was from a jig-saw (not too much blood). I hate the
trigger-lock feature on a jig saw. That saw is like a wild cat jumping
all over the place when you pop out of a cut! If I'd keep my work
areas picked up better,,heh-heh, I wouldn't trip on 2x4 cut-offs and
such, and would have had much better control of the situation that day.
:-)

Tom in KY, Have a safe day guys.