Blind Dadoes

[bill_lumley]

I am considering taking the plunge and moving away from plane old butt joints for a few reasons now that may familiarirty with E-cabinets is on the rise (thanks to the videos everyone has been nudging me to take advanatage of)

My primary box material is 16 mm thick partical core Melamine . Initially my primary reason for going to this joinery is to get the registration offered by an interlocking joint AND to give me a means to identify better through assermbly marks orientation of key parts so I don't end up with parts upside down


My questions are:

- is 16mm too thin to use this construction
- what percentage of the material should be used for the tenon and what depth and tenon clearance is a good number to start out with . I use 1//4" compression from centurion at the moment .
- If I move up to a 3/8" cutter will my material be too weak at the joint to use this joint ?

I have only applied the joint to the deck where it meets the sides in a base cabinet .When the Cabinet Editior draws this joint it would appear one tenon is 'transparent' and the other is 'filled in' ... Should this be a concern ? In the nesting drawings it appears the parts cut properly .

Thansk Bill

[thewoodcrafter]

Tenon construction will work with 16mm material.
I would use 50% for the tenon size and 8mm the depth. You will have to test on your machine but you could start with .020 clearance.
You will have to use a 1/4" bit.

What you are seeing on the screen may be your computer not rendering everything due to memory or processor speed. I would not worry about it.

[Gary Campbell]

Bill...
Echo what Roger says. No reason not to use the tenon dado joinery. We use this almost 100% in 18mm material. We also have been using the assembly marks, especially for our flat pack wholesale jobs and the customers love it.

To answer your questions:

16mm is not too thin

You will need to select a % that allows use of the 3/8 bit. The minimum would be 58% (.3653) plus .010 side clearance allows a 3/8 bit to machine the dado. You dado depth minimum would need to be .375 to match the bit. (or .355 with .020 depth clearance)

I would use a 1/4" bit for 1/2" material, but really prefer the 3/8. I feel it allows much faster cutting and the evacuate chips much better. They last longer and there are many more options, like chipbreakers for the 3/8.

I am not sure how partical board will hold up on the panel end between the blind dado and the end of the part. You will have to test to see if your material holds up.

I agree with Roger on the rendering, if the parts cut good, they are good!

Gary

[erniek]

I've been building cabinets with 5/8" (16mm) particle core melamine and blind datto construction since May of last year. Made the switch when the link first came out. I use 40% tenon size and 1/4" depth which with the 5/8" melamine works out to be 1/4" x 1/4". I use a 1/4" compression spiral bit for all datto and outline cuts. A 3/8" cutter won't leave enough strength in the 5/8 melamine and cuts slower on a non-alpha machine. I use a melamine glue for assembly. One thing I'm still trying to improve is that the particle board gets rather ragged on the tennons, probably because I'm not using a mortise end compression bit.

[thewoodcrafter]

Bill,

Something I forgot to add is that on mid-shelves I always use 100% thick tenons. I have not used assembly marks. But with 100% thick mid-shelves assembly is fool proof. You can't put it together wrong.
I have used several people assemble my cabinets with only about 10min training.

[bill_lumley]

Thanks everyone for the input . I tried a few test this evening and found a good fit with .007" side clearance but I saw something that concerns me a bit . I am using a 1/4" bit (all I have at the moment) with a 1/4 X 1/4 tenon . I do a two pass cutting strategy with the onion skin coming off in the last pass . However that last pass goes out around the tenon so that it does not clean up the shoulder of the tenon and there is a small 'bump' on the shoulder where the tenor begins . Should this be a concern and is there a way to solve it other than a 3 pass cut of some sort (the link only supports 2 pass' I think) .

If I use Melamine glue in the joint will it fill in any possible gap caused by the above .

Thanks Bill

[thewoodcrafter]

Bill,

A picture is worth a thousand words.

[bill_lumley]

This is it . The bump is in the top surface .
657

[Gary Campbell]

BIll...

There are differences in the paths of the bit from your tenon dado cuts and your perimeter cuts. 3 things cause this:

1) Improper bit size. Mic to confirm

2) Deflection, either machine or bit. Use larger bit, sharper bit, more aggresive bit or slow down cut speed should cure the bit portion.
Make sure all V rollers in X, Y and Z are snugged up, along with pinions to the racks.

3) Cutting directions:
How do you have your 2 pass ouline cutting setup? Have you tried for your perimeter settings:
Direction: Climb
Check: "run all through cuts last" AND "Run opposite direction"

For Rout Dado: check conventional

Keep us posted
Gary

[erniek]

I've had that problem before too. The 2 pass outline cutting strategy as Gary has explained above helped reduce it. Judging by 0.007 side clearance I'm thinking your V rollers need to be tightened up. When you do, you'll likely need to adjust your side clearance higher maybe 0.015" - 0.020"

[bill_lumley]

Hi Gary ,

1) Micing shows bit at .246 and software expects .250 . There is some play in X and Y (can wiggle a bit - maybe 1/32") . I snugged up X pinions not long ago . I have never thought to replace them . How often should I do that if I am cutting only 2 or 3 times a month. I am only cutting at 2"/second so speed should not be an issue .....

A new bit from same manufacturer miced at .249 . Perhaps this is why I had to reduce my side tolerance to .007".

3) This is how my perimeter cut is set up .

Rout Dado is set to conventional .

[bill_lumley]

Dumb Question - when you say snugg up V-rollers is that the same thing as making sure your Pinion gears are snuggly engaged ... ?

[Gary Campbell]

Bill...
I would be more likely to call a .250 bit .248 than to go the other way as yours is. Adjust the software to actual bit diameter or .002 undersize. This can easily laeave an .008 ridge as you machine on either side of a vector line.

To me 1/32 is too much wiggle room. Find a way to reduce or eliminate it. I had around 800 hrs of cutting when I couldnt get the "rattle" out of the pinions. New ones cured the problem. Many variables on time to change, no rule of thumb.

If you need adjustments in the motion parts then you will get errors even at your cutting speeds.

Keep your bits accurate and you wont have to adjust the side clearance.

There are adjustments on the V rollers on your Z. Check your manual as they are different in the 2 generations of PRS. Also check the Y. I also like to take the motor off and after I snug the roller, run the car by hand to see if there are any tight or loose spots.

My pinions sometimes lose tolerance in a day of cutting.

Gary

[dlcw]

I've currently got my side tolerance set to about .007 and bottom clearance set to .01. The dados fit really well. I used to have .01 side tolerance and dados were always loose. I tried .001 and they were to tight. The setting all depends on your machine. I know Gary's is different then mine. Machine settings, maintenance and tolerance will determine your settings.

Don
www.dlwoodworks.com (http://www.dlwoodworks.com)

[bill_lumley]

I will do some more experiments this evening and try adjusting some things as Gary suggests . Is there a way in E-cabinets to have ALL settings for something like a Blind Dado set at once so we don't have to go through cabinet by cabinet ,joint by joint making these adjustments . It is error prone doing everything 'manually' like this .

Thanks for all the input so far .

Bill

[dlcw]

Bill,

Under global settings in the construction dialog box you can set width and depth tolerances and these will be for all dado's.

Don

[thewoodcrafter]

What Don said but this is only for one cabinet.
You need to do each cabinet separately like this.
There is not a GLOBAL way to do this for ALL cabinet at once.

[Gary Campbell]

Bill...
Yes, but it does involve starting with a new seed. I will give the procedure that I use for mine:

Start with Std Cabinet and then in const settings>global
I set all to generic 3/4 and joinery to blind dado, depth .375, side clear .010, depth clear .020 click OK to accept

Back into const settings>back
set back mtl to 1/2 generic, .25 inset and select full dado for left and right, butt top & bottom
>back const settings set dado depth to .25
>top set my blind fronts to larger #,
>deck set same
> fixed shelves same settings

Now all cabinets made from this seed will have those settings.
Gary

[dlcw]

I stand corrected. I should have specified that it was for all dado's in the cabinet you are working on. Not all the cabinets in a job. My bad :-(

Don

[bill_lumley]

No bad here Don


Thanks everyone for sharing . I just wished they had speeded up E-cabinets . It doesn't feel any faster than the previuos version so it can take quite a while updatnig cabinets .... slogging away . Somedays this sure doesn't feel like cabinet making

[Gary Campbell]

Bill, Don, etal...
Have any of you cut any V6 designed jobs and is there any noticable differences when you go to the machine? Other than the shorter path to a TWD, that is.
Gary

[bill_lumley]

I am only doing some testing now of construction changes Gary . I take my first full job over next week .

[dlcw]

Gary,

I just cut a V6 job of 5 cabinets. As far as going to the machine - it is a lot faster. Other then that it's the same results as V5.

Don

[Gary Campbell]

I wont be switching over to V6 for a few weeks until I get an 80 sheet job out the door. After it goes to the machine I will be full time V6.
Gary

[dlcw]

Were you able to get back to V5 after the attempted V6 upgrade fiasco?

[Gary Campbell]

Don...
Heres the timeline:
I installed V6 and migrated my V5.2 data.
Used it for 5 days almost flawlessly
On the 6th it started crashing every cab that had a PE cut on it. (80%)
I decided to go back to version 5.2 (didnt I learn from the SB3 about this?)
I uninstalled V6 using Vista /programs uninstall
I installed version 5.2 not as admin
Did the same for 5.2build6
Neither worked
Neither could be reinstalled or installed.
TWD Techs got me working using a few reg hacks and a 3rd party uninstaller
Installed 5.2 and 5.2build6 as admin (you know, followed instructions!)
All is well
Gary

[dlcw]

Nice dig on the instructions comments :-) :-)

Glad you're back up and running.

[thewoodcrafter]

I cut 3 cabinets today and noticed something with material thickness.

Changing material thickness for a TWD changed the material database in e-Cabinets.

I don't like this. I had to make new material when I opened the file later in the day.

Anybody else notice this?

[dlcw]

Roger,

I think that is why I'm having a problem that I posted on the Thermwood forum. I was telling the guys that when I load my job and then save it, next time I load it it asks for a new material again. I hadn't linked this to changing material thinkness when creating the TWD but now that you mention it, it makes sense. I will let the Thermwood guys know about this.

Don

[thewoodcrafter]

That is what is causing that Don.

I posted there too but no replies yet.

Another problem I have had is adding a panel(from sheet stock)
It hangs the computer. If I go to exit and cancel it un-hangs it and works fine. I need to post it.

[bill_lumley]

Guys , posting problems on the forum is not the best way to get resolution I think. Phone up tech support and ask why these things are happening . I have them working on a problem now because of strange behavior I see . Earlier in the year I was having a problem with the Link and within 24 hours an update was posted .At the very least they may give you a workaround for now ....

[dlcw]

Bill,

You're right.

When I post on the forum I also send an email to tech support (Shopbot, Thermwood, Vectric, etc.) with detailed information that I don't post on the forum. I do the forum post so the masses are aware of a potential problem. If other people are experiencing the same problem or something similar it gives them something to tune into. If more people are having the same or similar problem and they all contact tech support then the power of large groups starts to put some urgency into getting it fixed. If only one person reports the problem then, in my experience, tech support might conclude it is that persons problem and not a software/hardware problem. Squeaky gear-sets gets the grease kinda thing. :-)

Don

[erniek]

I'm running both versions on the same computer. I have Windows XP running on one partition with version 5.2 and Windows 7 running on another partion with version 6.0. When the computer boots up it gives me a choice of which version of windows to boot up in. The version 6 is a fresh install, not an upgrade from verion 5.2.
The problem I'm having is which files and folders should I copy over so that all the old cabinet designs and hole patterns are available.

[navigator7]

Kang is a webbot producing slop.
Don't click on any links.