Getting It In The Groove

I had dildos in my head earlier... Sorry for the confusion. Now I'd like to describe a technique for you to get your wood deep inside the groove with absolutely zero frustration and minimal effort. All it takes is a plan and a little finesse, just a clamp or two - maybe three if you're anal like me, and of course, the wood before you try to stick it in. If you love what you're doing, it will come naturally. As described previously, cut the dado width about a sixteenth inch shy of the thickness of your material. The next step is to create a shoulder, or rabbet on the edge of the shelf (or other workpiece) To get consistent, perfect fitting joints we rely on jigs like this. Here we've set up a couple of *featherboards screwed to a board which is clamped to the table saw. They apply steady, even pressure. This set up is crude but shows what you can slap together in a few minutes. In future articles I'll show how investing a little time in your tools now will save many hours later by using quick release jigs. *The featherboard shown at Wikipedia is a bit lame, in my not so humble opinion. It's fingers are too short to allow much flex and the positioning method doesn't apply pressure as easily or as controllable as the ones I will describe later. Actually, these featherboards could be set up better to apply pressure directly at the blade. They could be raised over the blade with a spacer or they could be rabbeted to allow clearance around the blade. If your fence only clamps the front rail, don't forget to clamp it down at the back end. Also watch the clamp handles when you first turn on the saw. If they spin because of vibration, replace them or use some duct tape to keep the screws from turning. This is a nice fit. Snug but not so tight that it is difficult to push together by hand. I will describe ways of creating dados with other tools in later posts.