How To Cut Slots Into Wood
How to Make Keyhole Slots With a Drill By Jack Ori. Step 1 Mark the keyhole in the center of the piece of wood you are using. Draw layout lines to indicate the ends of the router. Step 2 Clamp wood to the layout lines to keep the wood steady as you drill with the router. Step 3 Put a square bit into the router. Attach a fence to the router. Learn how to make a simple router jig for cutting dado slots. This simple jig makes it easy to cut accurate dadoes with a router. This jig is easy to build and simple to use. Bookcase project plan.
Cutting a dado is a very common task in a lot of woodworking projects. What is a dado? It’s basically just a word for cutting a channel, or a groove, into a piece of wood that another piece of wood will slot into.
This is a great way to make sure that pieces are put together accurately in cabinets, desks and so on.
You are cutting the grooves that everything will slot into, thus greatly increasing the accuracy of assembly during your woodworking project.
The photo shown here demonstrates this example, there is a groove cut in the wood that is sized for another piece of wood to fit into.
Using stacked blades
The easiest (or at least most efficient) way to cut a dado is to use a stacked dado blade for a table saw. A stacked blade is pretty much exactly as it sounds, multiple bladed stacked to create a wide cutting blade.
In order to properly use a stacked dado blade on your table saw, you will want to make sure that your saw can fit the stacked blade, and you will also want to be sure that your saw is powerful enough to cut into wood with that wide of a stroke.
Dado cutting tips
If you can’t safely fit the needed with of blade onto your table saw, there are a couple tricks to make it easier to cut the dado you need with the hardware you do have.
Making Slots In Wood
The first situation might be needing to cut a 3/4 dado, but only being able to fit a 1/2 stacked blade into your table saw. In this case, you could make one pass to cut a 1/2 inch dado, and then make a second pass on the table saw to cut the remaining 1/4 inches that you need. You will need to make two passes, obviously, but you can still get a 3/4 dado by doing this.
Alternatively, you may need to cut a dado that is 1/2 inch deep but don’t have a saw powerful enough to make that in one pass. You could cut 1/4 inch deep on one pass, then make a second pass and cut out the remaining 1/4 inch. This is quite common for woodworkers that use router blades to cut dadoes.
Don’t neglect stability
In order to promote strength and stability in your woodworking projects, it’s probably a good idea to refrain from cutting a dado that is more than 1/3 of the way through the full thickness of the wood. If you cut 2/3 of the way through, you will destabilize the strength of the wood and may accidentally bread the board before you get everything assembled.
image by: David Numan
Related posts:
A wood table top attached with table top fasteners will help to prevent cracking caused by movement from seasonal changes.
Table top fasteners are an easy way to attach a top to a table. But there’s another reason to use figure 8 fasteners, kerf fasteners or DIY table top fasteners. They allow for movement caused by seasonal changes.
A wood table top attached without allowing for movement can cause the wood to crack or split over time. Table top fasteners allow the top to move throughout the seasons. This helps to prevent cracking and ensure your DIY table top will be beautiful for years to come.
For your convenience, this post contains affiliate links to supplies or tools I used to complete this project. Purchases made using these links help support the Saws on Skates website and allow me to share more DIY projects. and DIY tips with you. There is no cost to you for using these links. Click here to visit my site policies.
It’s important to have an understanding of wood when building DIY furniture projects. Not just how to cut, and assemble with wood but also to understand how it works. In Mistakes with Wood Can Cause Your DIY Furniture to Crack we talked about how wood is hygroscopic. Simply put, hygroscopic means it absorbs moisture from the air. Seasonal changes cause wood to absorb and release moisture.
How To Cut Wood Patterns
This continuous absorption and releasing of moisture causes the wood to swell and shrink. This swelling and shrinking causes the wood to move and this movement causes issues. When it’s more humid, the moisture in the air is absorbed and the wood swells. The swelling actually has enough force to push and pull joints apart. Worse yet, if the wood is joined incorrectly it can cause the wood to crack and split.
One of the most common projects to crack is a wood table top. Many times when building a table the top is attached without taking wood movement into consideration. Recently I received a message from June who wanted to learn more about the correct way to attach a table top:
Thank you so much for this great article! I would love if you could explain more in depth how to attach table tops and add illustrations – I had a hard time visualizing what you meant in your post about your apothecary cabinet and the screws/washers. I don’t have a router or biscuit joiner. Is it a lost cause until I have one of those?”
Thank you so much for reaching out and for the questions. I love hearing from you guys! And yes, absolutely let’s look more closely at some ways to properly attach a wood table top. Oh, and if you have a question you can contact me here.
What Causes a Wood Table Top to Crack?
Before we look at the correct way to attach a wood table top let’s look at the incorrect way to attach a table top. I’m guilty of incorrectly attaching a table top when building a table or even a stool. In my stool project, I drilled pocket holes through the apron, then used pocket screws to attach the stool top.
First, let me say I LOVE pocket hole joinery! I have an entire directory dedicated to Kreg Jig Tips and Tricks and there’s even a page where you can ask your pocket hole questions. But pocket hole joinery is not the best solution to attach a table top.
Using pocket holes to attach the stool base to the stool top prevents the top from moving during seasonal changes. It’s also not a good idea to drive screws through the edge of the apron into the table top. Over time the top could crack or the top could have enough force to push or pull the joints of the base apart. Skate over to Mistakes with Wood Can Cause Your DIY Furniture to Crack to see more about how I incorrectly attached the top on the stool.
Table Top Fasteners Prevent Cracking
A better option for attaching a table top when building a table is to use either store-bought table top fastener or DIY table top fasteners. Table top fasteners securely attaches a table top to a base but allows the top to move freely during seasonal changes.
Figure 8 Table Top Fasteners
One of the easiest options for attaching a table top to a furniture project is with a figure 8 fastener. A Forstner bit is used to drill holes in the apron and the figure 8 fastener is screwed to the apron. The top is then placed on the DIY table and the top is attached with screws through the figure 8 fastener.
Need help installing figure 8 fasteners? My friend Vineta at The Handyman’s Daughter has you covered! Check out her step by step tutorial that explains exactly how to install a table top using these fasteners.
Kingdom hearts 1.5 item list. If you're playing with the PCSX2 Emulator and you'd like to use the codes on this page I recommend heading over to my. This will explain how to setup and use the codes on this page with that emulator.Alternatively if you're playing on a physical console you'll need to own a CodeBreaker/GameShark disc in order to use these codes.
Kerf Table Top Fasteners
Another option for attaching a table top to a furniture project is with a kerf fastener. With this option a groove is cut in the apron using the kerf or width of a table saw blade. Then the table top fastener is inserted into the groove and attached to the table top with a screw.
DIY Table Top Fasteners
You can make your own DIY table top fasteners using scrap wood and a plate joiner or biscuit joiner. For this example, I used “0” biscuits. “0” biscuits are about 2” long.
The DIY fasteners need to be wider than the biscuit, so I made marks every 2-1/2” on a scrap piece of 1×2. Then drew lines using a Kreg Multi-Mark to make sections.
I placed the board on the Kreg Mobile Project Center and against the bench dogs. I used the biscuit joiner to cut slots in the middle of each section.
Using a miter saw I cut the sections apart. It’s not critical that the DIY fasteners are the same width, so just use the lines you drew as a guide for cutting.
Use a countersink bit to drill a hole in each DIY fastener. Make sure not to drill through the biscuit slot.
Next, cut biscuit slots around the inside edge of the apron.
Place the apron on the table top, insert a biscuit and slide the DIY fastener over the biscuit. Do not apply glue to the biscuit. The biscuit is what allows the table top to move during seasonal changes. Attach the fastener with a wood screw.
How to Attach Tabletop with Screws
If it isn’t feasible to attach your table top to the base by the aprons you can do what I did for the wine cabinet and apothecary cabinet. I drilled oversized holes in the top braces.
Then attached the table top to the base with washers and screws. The oversized holes allow the top to move freely and the washers keep the screws from falling into the holes.
Final Thoughts
Attaching a wood table top without allowing for movement due to seasonal changes can cause the wood to crack over time. The best way to attach a table top is with table top fasteners. The fasteners allow the top to move throughout the seasons, help to prevent cracking and ensure your DIY table top will be beautiful for years to come.
Thank you for stopping by. If you found this information helpful, would you please pin it to Pinterest? Other DIYers would appreciate it and I would too! Thank you – Scott