I bought a cheap dado stack for $80 back in 2015 and it ruined a whole sheet of walnut plywood on the first cut.

2 comments

2 Comments

A cheap dado stack is just a tool, and a ruined cut is almost always user error. You can't blame the equipment for a bad setup or pushing the wood too fast. That plywood was probably going to get messed up with any blade if the fence wasn't perfectly aligned. Spending more money doesn't automatically make you a better woodworker.

robert_hayes11d ago

So you're saying a cheap stack can perform just as well as a premium one if the setup is perfect? Where do you draw the line between a tool that's just fine and one that's actually dangerous or impossible to tune properly? I've seen some real junk where the chippers were warped right out of the box, and no amount of user skill fixes a bent piece of steel.