Advice on a Knotty Dado
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So, I’ve been working on making myself a saw bench, and I need to cut a dado into a particularly knotty piece of pine. I was wondering what advice you had for this, as the usual splitting followed by routing probably won’t work as per usual. The last time I tried to use the router plane on knots like these, it dulled really fast, and chipped a corner off the blade.
I’m guessing I just need to take my time, chisel out as much as I can, and then take the router-plane to the non-knotty wood, and chisel the knots down to flush after?
Anyways, here are some pictures of what I’m up against. I figure this is as good a project as any to screw up on, but I’d like to give it my best shot so when it comes up in something nicer, I’ll have a bit more experience.
-Tim Anderson, UT, USA
Tim, when I had timber like that, I used a series of saw cuts just about to depth across the dado. It made for much less resistance for my chisel and router plane.
Good advice Ken. Also if you spin the board end for end on your bench. Notice how the knot and grain will be falling away from you. It should pare out fine. Chisel or router plane.
Sounds good. Thanks for the advice everyone. The sawing many slots trick is something I didn’t consider, and I expect it will make my life quite a bit easier.
-Tim Anderson, UT, USA
Tim you picked an awful spot todo housing.
Ken is correct I would use saw on knife walls as well as a series of saw cuts about an 1/8″ to a 1/4″ apart.Dagenham, Essex, England
An update for anyone who was following along. I cut a great many slots in the dado, then chiseled it out. All in all it probably took me around 45 minutes, which isn’t much longer than it takes me on one of the non-knotty dadoes.
The final surface finish was better than my first attempt, but some of the knots broke out a bit. My third and fourth dado turned out better than both of the previous, and I used the same method of cutting many slots in the board before chiseling it out. This made it much faster, and easier to remove most of the waste before using my router plane for the final surface. The last two only took around 30 minutes each from start to finish.
-Tim Anderson, UT, USA
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