I’m constructing an auxillary table for a drill-press. The top will be 1/4″ hardboard, and will contain a couple of mini-tracks. I have a good, sharp dado set, and would like to make the cuts for the tracks after gluing the top to the plywood core – in lieu of fitting the tracks in the core, and then installing the hardboard. With my preferred method, is the dado blade likely to chip the hardboard?
Thanks – Dave
Edited 6/23/2004 5:10 pm ET by Dave
Replies
Assuming it's a dado set of reasonable quality and the blades are sharp, chipping should be minimal. Why don't you set up a small sample board, and run it thru your dado to see how it performs?
If you are really concerned, you might use the time-honored method of marking and scoring both cut lines -- before you set your dado blade to it.
On the other hand, it is a drill press table, and a little chipping won't hurt anything.
Dave,
If by hardboard you mean Masonite, you probably won't have a tearout problem. The fibers in the hardboard are short, so any tearing shouldn't extend far from the edge of the cut and hardboard in general cuts cleanly. Using a zero clearance insert would help to guarantee a clean cut.
It never hurts to make a test cut in some scrap, the hardboard wouldn't have to be glued to a core to get a sense of how it will cut with the dado set. Presumably your dado set is carbide tipped, hardboard would be tough on steel dado set.
John W.
Hardboard or mdf doesn't chip when dadoed. You may have to clean the fuzzy bottom a bit. If it's hardboard then the bottom will not fuzz. Mdf will fuzz below the top 1/8", no big deal, if you think it's neccessary you can take a block and sandpaper and clean it up in a couple of minutes.
mike
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