Popular Woodworking 2004-04 № 140, страница 48

A 6" rule will help you set the length of your tenon. Once you do this a couple of times you'll hit this measurement right away every time.

your tenons. Install the dado stack blades and chippers on the saw's arbor. The rule here is to install enough blades to almost cut the length of the tenon in one pass. For example, to cut a 1"-long tenon, set up enough blades and chippers to make a ^V'-wide cut.

Next, position your saw's rip fence. Measure from the left-most tooth of your dado stack to the fence and shoot for the exact

length of your tenon. A 1"-long tenon should measure 1" from the left-most tooth to the fence, as shown in the photo above.

Get your slot miter gauge out and square the fence or head of the gauge to the bar that travels in the table saw's slot. Attach a wooden fence to the face of the gauge (usually this involves screws through holes already drilled in the gauge). This wooden fence

stabilizes your workpiece and controls tear-out as the dado stack blades exit the cut.

Set the height of the blades to just a little shy of the shoulder cut you're after. You want to sneak up on the perfect setting by raising the arbor of the saw instead of lowering it. This does two things: One, it produces fewer waste pieces that result from overshooting your mark. And two, because of the mechanical backlash inherent in all geared systems such as your table saw, raising the arbor eliminates any potential for it to slip downward because of backlash.

You are now ready to make a test cut. First put a scrap piece up against your miter gauge, turn on the saw and make a cut on the end of the board. Use firm downward pressure on the piece. Don't let the end of the board touch the saw's rip fence. Then bring the scrap piece and miter gauge back and make a second pass, this time with the scrap touching the rip fence as shown below.

Flip the scrap over and repeat the process on the other face. Usually you aren't supposed to use your rip fence and miter gauge in tandem, but this is an exception. This cut is safe because there isn't any waste that could get trapped between the blades and the fence, producing a kickback.

Check your work with your dial calipers and see if the tenon will fit your sample mortise. The tenon is likely going to be too thick. Raise the blades just a bit and take passes on both faces of the scrap until the tenon fits firmly and snugly into the sample mortise with only hand pressure.

If you can shake the sample mortise and the tenon falls out, you've overshot your mark and need to lower the arbor and try again. If the fit is just a wee bit tight, you can always tune that up with a shoulder plane. Let your dial calipers be your guide. Sometimes you haven't used enough downward pressure during the cut to make a consistent

When making tenons with a dado stack in your table saw, the first pass should remove the bulk of the material. Keep firm downward pressure on your work, which will give you more accurate cuts.

The second pass has the work against the fence and defines the face shoulder. Note there isn't any wood between the fence and blades, so the chance of kickback is minimal.The backing board reduces the chance of tear-out at the shoulders.

Cut the edge shoulders the same way you cut the face shoulders and cheeks.

46 Popular Woodworking April 2004