Euro bros, is it true that you can't buy a dado stack in the EU?
tl/dr
Maybe all you "new guys" don't know me. I'm a long time member here, but haven't posted in quite a while. I still read new posts occasionally. Anyway, I moved from the US to Hungary in 2022. I sold all my power tools because the EU voltage is different, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I bought a house and now I got the place cleaned up enough (garage cleared of moving boxes, etc) to start building up a new munkahely... I mean... workshop. I'm about ready to pull the trigger on a new tablesaw. I started looking around for dado stacks and couldn't find any on the cheap, because I'm a cheap guy. I need it to be cheap. I started researching - the saw I'm looking at has a 30mm arbor (about twice the diameter of 5/8" arbor) and none of the dado stacks on amazon.de are 30mm - they're all 5/8". I asked a Hungarian friend to help me search online locally (because my local language skills suck and my search results are extremely poor). Can't find ANY dado stacks on local websites. WTF? I found a couple of posts that suggested they're banned in the EU. WTF???
I guess I can live without a dado stack, but it sure will complicate a few things unnecessarily.
Happy you are getting to the point of getting a shop working again.
I only have 2 points about your subject.
1, Cheap Dado stacks give crap results, at least here in the US. All of the costlier stacks will give pretty good results. If the stack is making poor cuts, you may be better off getting a flat grind blade, and doing the zoom zoom zoom thing. OR for your Dado's look into doing them on the router table, or handheld with a good edge guide.
2 Along your search I didn't need it, because of being here, so I didn't keep a link, but I just recently read about a dado stack approved for use over there. I have no knowledge if it's worth a poop or not, just one had been approved.
I will say 2 people selling stuff that I generally respect quite a bit. Mike Taylor of Taylor tools, and Jonathan Katz Moses both sell CMT products. Because I like both of them, I bought a few blades, and some Forstner bits of the CMT line, and my opinion is they are way bottom tier goods, poor results brand new, and only worse as they got dull. My $0.02
I guess I have 3 things. Google Dado blade in EU, especially do a You Tube type search, and you will find many videos from guys over there scoffing at the "illegality" of using a Dado stack over there, and showing what they do. You might get some ideas.
Well 4 things. Looking at the videos I would guess you are seeing 5/8" arbor holes. You might go to Mike, or Jonathans sites and see if they spec one with a bigger hole. I know from experience that the quickest way to get a really wonky sawblade is to try to drill out the arbor hole of an existing blade. Friend who owns a specialty tool shop here, all of the requisite equipment, and they were fractionally off. It was a case of you could see the movement, and it wasn't of the confidence giving type. Runout is just a word, till you really see it in action.. :-O
Brian, I'd be very tempted to buy a saw over there that's nearly identical to a model that's sold over hear then order the arbor, washers & nut for the US market saw. Then you can buy whatever 5/8" bore dado you want. I know the restriction revolves (pun intended) around inertia and the inability for a saw to coast to a stop within a specified time, the skeletonized dado aims to reduce that inertia so a saw will coast to a stop within the required time. I'd much rather have a heavier dado stack when plowing a large groove in white oak vs. something aiming to conform to some stupid regulation.
OK, maybe I was being a little cutesy with the cheap talk. I was using a Freud set in the US which I paid less than $100 for around 10 or 12 years ago. I bought it at the home despot even.
Also, I watched the video. WOW - I never gave any of those safety concerns any thought whatsoever. Totally ignorant about it. That is some very good knowledge. I never ever used a blade guard. Fortunately I never had any issues.
Now for the meat and potatoes. I went to the link in the video: https://taytools.com/products/copy-of-cmt-orange-8-precision-dado-blade-set-12-teeth-ftg-atb-grind-0-125-kerf-230-012-08?_pos=3&_sid=e51388c83&_ss=r
He's selling it for a very reasonable $139. But with a 5/8 arbor hole. I looked on amazon.de and found a set with a 30mm arbor hole for almost $600 - more when tax and shipping is added. That is very UNreasonable. I suspect that is a very amazonian pricing strategy which I often saw in the US where something - anything - can be marked up by orders of magnitude because people either desperately need it or didn't see the ones with the real market price. Needless to say, I won't be making that mistake.
So thank you very much for the information. I do plan to go to the store that is selling the saw I'm looking at armed with my google translator and see if I can get these people to order it for me at a reasonable price. If not, there are a couple of places locally that sell tools that I can badger. Its really difficult to buy these kinds of things here because of the language barrier. My wife (a native) is useless in that regard because she's clueless with the technical jargon. That made renovating our house a lot of fun. :)
Amazon, and even somewhat rare ends up being bad juju for you. Something everyone has tons of, and they will be lowest price. Some say they are a necessary evil. I'm thinking Besoboy is simply Satanic.
Have you priced regular blades yet for that 30mm arbor, maybe that saw is a bad pick? More and more jigs, and set ups to route out Dado's, ALL I am aware of are way cheaper than 600 bux, by far.
Is that some kind of slang for drunk on pálinka all the time? ;-)
Have you priced regular blades yet for that 30mm arbor
Yes - they seem to be pretty common here. I didn't notice any difference in price. Bear in mind, I'm just starting to look around recently.
I could get away with a regular blade probably for a long time. I have a home office, a bedroom and a bar to fit out with built in furniture. I like to rabbet cabinet parts for bigger/stronger glue joints. I want everything to last forever. Rabbets can easily be done with a regular blade.
One thing I used my dado stack for in my old house was making all the interior doors. I won't have to do that here. We purchased very nice MDF doors from Poland. Did you know they install (interior) door frames here using ONLY spray foam to glue them into place? Sounds crazy, but it works. They're crazy about spray foam here.
