My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far. Here
is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is too
small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud does
not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base and
use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
Make an eccentric rectangular base for the router. That is, each side
is a given distance from a chosen bit. One side may be 3 inches away,
the next may be 3 and 1/8th, and so on, in increments of your choice.
Obviously, mark the base with the measurments and it's orientation with
the router, and the specific bit used. Tom
Sample in pix: http://www.patwarner.com/images/starter_bits2.jpg done
with cutter as shown.
Any dado width possible with that cutter.
Place templet against each side of shelf sample on the work, clamp
templets, remove sample, use cutter to waste out the space between
templets. Watch out, shelf may fit exactly on first try.
http://www.patwarner.com (Routers)
The mark entity posted thusly:
>My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far. Here
>is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
>doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
>not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is too
>small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud does
>not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big.
Well, plywood varies in thickness, and though I don't know how close
the tolerances on Melamine is, there is hope.
Best is to not rely on the size of the bit, but to make a jig that
eliminates the problem regardless of the size of the bit and the
thickness of the wood.
> Is my only
>option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base and
>use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
>router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
Several solutions have been posted here, but the basic idea is make a
jig in which one guide edge slides such that you vary the width of a
slot, and the slot is set to the thickness of the plywood. The bit you
use is smaller than the required width of the dado. It was the first
jig I made, and it works beautifully.
The one I built was detailed in Woodsmith's "Shop-Built Jigs and
Fixtures". If nobody else posts a link, I'll try to take a picture for
you.
mark wrote:
> My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far. Here
> is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
> doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
> not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is too
> small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud does
> not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
> option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base and
> use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
> router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
>
>
G'day Mark,
I'm assuming that your router has a round base??
Try this, clamp a straight edge onto a piece of timber, Rout into it and
then rotate the router keeping the base against the straight edge.
Unless your base is EXACTLY central and perfectly round, you will notice
that the bit cuts closer when a certain point of the base is against the
edge and further away when another point is against the edge. Quite
often all that is required is to make one run with the base in one
position and another with it in the opposite. If this is not enough to
give you the clearance you require you can always sand or file a smidge
of one side of the base.
Hope this helps.
Hope you can understand it :)
regards
John
"mark" wrote in message
> My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far.
Here
> is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
> doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
> not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is
too
> small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud
does
> not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
> option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base
and
> use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
> router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
Ping Leon and find out where to find the plans for his homemade adjustable
router jig that will allow you to cut the dadoes to the precise thickness of
your melamine.
There are other jigs that will do the same thing, so you might DAGS on the
newsgroup.
--
www.e-woodshop.net
Last update: 12/13/05
"Brian Henderson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:50:02 GMT, "mark" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>>My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far.
>>Here
>>is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
>>doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
>>not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is
>>too
>>small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud
>>does
>>not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
>>option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base
>>and
>>use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
>>router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
>
> It's really not necessary, you just have to make 2 passes with a
> smaller bit. You can either set up your guide fence twice, or make a
> simple jig for running dados where you run down one side of the fence,
> then back up the other. I remember seeing a couple of plans for a
> simple jig in the last couple months, I think in both Shopsmith and
> Popular Woodworking, but I'm sure you can find one online pretty
> easily.
There is a picture of one over on abpw in a thread entitled Dado Jig For
Router.
Thanks everyone, that jig is so simply yet ingenious. I tried the 16mm and
it is a very tight perfect fit but I am sure I will come across melamine a
hair thicker that will not fit. I am going to make that jig for sure.
"Lee Michaels" <leemichaels*nadaspam*@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> "Brian Henderson" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:50:02 GMT, "mark" <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far.
> >>Here
> >>is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I
am
> >>doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this
is
> >>not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is
> >>too
> >>small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud
> >>does
> >>not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
> >>option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base
> >>and
> >>use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
> >>router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
> >
> > It's really not necessary, you just have to make 2 passes with a
> > smaller bit. You can either set up your guide fence twice, or make a
> > simple jig for running dados where you run down one side of the fence,
> > then back up the other. I remember seeing a couple of plans for a
> > simple jig in the last couple months, I think in both Shopsmith and
> > Popular Woodworking, but I'm sure you can find one online pretty
> > easily.
>
> There is a picture of one over on abpw in a thread entitled Dado Jig For
> Router.
>
>
>
mark (in [email protected]) said:
| My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so
| far. Here is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8"
| melamine and I am doing most dados on the table saw. There are a
| few locations were this is not practical and I want to use a router
| and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is too small I will try a 16mm but I
| think it will be too small as well freud does not make a 17mm or a
| 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only option to make
| a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base and use
| the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy
| a router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
Mark...
Leon came up with the jig that should do just what you want. With his
permission I've posted his photos to a web page; and (without his
permission) I added the drawing I made when I built my copy. You can
use the link below to get to the web page - you can click on any of
the images to get a better view.
--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/dado.html
On Tue, 21 Feb 2006 13:50:02 GMT, "mark" <[email protected]>
wrote:
>My kitchen cabinet building experience has not been a good one so far. Here
>is my latest problem. I am building the boxes from 5/8" melamine and I am
>doing most dados on the table saw. There are a few locations were this is
>not practical and I want to use a router and guide. Anyway a 5/8" bit is too
>small I will try a 16mm but I think it will be too small as well freud does
>not make a 17mm or a 21/32 and an 11/16" will be way too big. Is my only
>option to make a jig with rails sapaced 1/32" wider than the router base and
>use the 5/8" bit too widen the dado? It is rediculous that I can't buy a
>router bit which matches common 5/8"melamine.
It's really not necessary, you just have to make 2 passes with a
smaller bit. You can either set up your guide fence twice, or make a
simple jig for running dados where you run down one side of the fence,
then back up the other. I remember seeing a couple of plans for a
simple jig in the last couple months, I think in both Shopsmith and
Popular Woodworking, but I'm sure you can find one online pretty
easily.
The mark entity posted thusly:
>Thanks everyone, that jig is so simply yet ingenious. I tried the 16mm and
>it is a very tight perfect fit but I am sure I will come across melamine a
>hair thicker that will not fit. I am going to make that jig for sure.
If you are speaking of the one on abpw, it is pretty simple and works
well. You can thank Woodsmith for it. :-)