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Saturday, November 14, 2009

Ask Stonekettle Station

Today’s search phrase:

How do I crack corn with a dado blade?

How do I crack corn with a … ?

This is a dado blade:

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It’s for making dados (a wide slot, usually to fit another board into for joinery) in wood.

It goes on a machine called a tablesaw:

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How do I crack corn with a dado blade?

Wow, you got me.  I can’t even come up with a smart assed answer for that.

 

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I’ve got no more idea how to crack corn with a tablesaw than I know how to make a cheese log with a router.

If you ever figure it out, Stumpy, be sure to have your caregiver drop me an email.

14 comments:

  1. That's just a stupid question.

    But I could use some help with this one. Do you know how to weave fabric with a dishwasher?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Weaving fabric with a dishwasher sounds like it should be my department.

    But you know what? It isn't.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care!
    Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care!
    Jimmy crack corn, and I don't care!

    blah blah blah blah the blue tail fly...

    What were we talking about?

    Buffalo tacos for supper? Check.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Considering that, depending upon who you talk to, "cracking corn" can mean cracking open a jug of corn liquor, I would think that cracking corn while operating a table saw is a surefire method for improving the overall intelligence of the human race by self-selected culling.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Nobody ever finds any of my sites using crazy searches. I'm really jealous, because it's obviously great blog fodder.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Dammit, Jim, Karl beat me to it....

    Sort of. Only I would have gone with:

    Jim can crack corn and I don't ca-aaaare
    If he uses a da-do blaaaaaade!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, and to answer Nathan's question: I guess it depends on whether or not the guy who's paid to wash the dishes knows how to work a loom or not. I'd assume that if you wanted to weave fabric with a dishwasher, one of you would work the peddles and the other one would send the shuttle back and forth or something, I'm not really sure.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Nathan- it depends on the model of dishwasher and the style and size of the drawers or baskets in any given model.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Cracking corn with a dado blade is dead simple, and I don't just mean the corn whiskey method.

    Lay 4" circle of corn kernals on concrete floor, one layer thick. Place dado blade on top. Beat with 2 pound Estwing hand sledge.

    By the way Dado blades work in radial arm saws as well and I'm glad to see you are using a real one and not a 'dial a prayer' gimick.

    ReplyDelete
  10. ntsc, I actually own several types of dado blades, including the dial/wobble type (though I don't use it much), mostly though I use the stacked Freud. The difference is that almost all stacked typed dado blades are 8" where the dial/wobble is 10". Sometimes that matters.

    If I'm cutting cross grain dados/rabbits I use the radial arm saw, if I'm cutting with the grain I use the tablesaw - and that's true for pretty all of the my saw work (though I do use the chopsaw for miters).

    ReplyDelete
  11. One other thing, the dial/wobble blade allows you to make both concave and convex bottom cuts, the stacked type only allows for a flat bottomed cut. Again, you don't need that very often, but when you do nothing else works but a wobble blade.

    On the other hand, the stacked dado is far, far more precise.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The concave/convex thing could be real handy. You can do it with the stacked blades but it takes multiple passes/set ups and it's a lot of trouble. Convex you may be able to do with a router.

    I've got 16' run off tables on either side of my radial so it get used for lots of ripping. There is only a 10' long table behind the tablesaw.

    If I ever get the shop neat enough to see anything under the piles, I'll post some pictures. The summer project was garage based, so there was no real incentive.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Yeah, it's probably time for me to post a couple shop tour pictures again as well.

    I've got 20' tables on either side of the RAS and a 12' outfeed table on the TS. And I have high end, dedicated function blades on both saws, the RAS is used strictly for crosscuts and the TS for ripping. I'm not a big fan of general purpose blades. Additionally I have the RAS mounted infront of a custom built chip/dust collection box that's connected to my cyclone, turning it for rip cuts would throw crap all over the shop.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Leave it to Jim to win the 'mine is bigger than yours' contest.

    I can't get lumber longer than 16' in the basement, so longer run off tables would just fill with more junk.

    I change blades as needed, but most of what I do is fir dimensional, so GP works fine for most stuff.

    Good woods I'll use the right blade.

    I finally seem to have gotten the google account to not throw up on Vista.

    Have posted in the past as ntsc and probably will again.

    ReplyDelete

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