Tool review: Whiteside dado set

Whiteside Machine Co. recently partnered with manufacturer Dimar to offer a line of tablesaw blades, including this 8-in. dado set. I had high hopes for the blades, and they performed as expected. This is a top-of-the-line set.

The blades have thick plates and carefully ground carbide. The configuration is typical, consisting of two 44-tooth outside cutter blades, and a set of chippers enabling dado cuts from 1⁄4 in. to 13⁄16 in. wide in standard fractions.

All the teeth are ground to a negative 6° hook. The set also comes with an extensive set of plastic shims, helpfully color coded, so you can dial in exact dado widths between those fractions of an inch. This can be very helpful when working with laminates and plywood.

The blade yielded very smooth cuts in all types of material. I ran it with solid oak and maple, oak and birch veneer plywood, and plastic laminate on MDF. All the cuts were very smooth without any visible chipping or tearout, even a cross-grain cut in oak veneer plywood. I needed to slightly increase my feed pressure when cutting with the grain in solid wood, but this was minor.

—Charlie Durfee is a professional woodworker in Woolwich, Maine.

From Fine Woodworking #293