Stacked dado in UK is legal after all!

[foggytown]

Well, well, well. For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.


David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.) The only restriction is that
the maximum kerf width is 15.5 mm.

Now, who sells a TS in UK that will accept the cutter. In fact, who
sells the cutters?

FoggyTown

[Andy Dingley]

Post by foggytown
For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.

Who ever said dado heads were illegal in the UK ?

Post by foggytown
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.)

Nope.

The legal constraint is about spin-down time with a heavy dado blade.
The machine must either come to rest quickly on its own, or it must have
brakes fitted to it. It's not trivial to brake a machine with a heavy
dado head that's only retained by a LH nut - it can work free when
stopping.

You can find the _real_ details under the PUWER 98 regulation on the HSE
site
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis37.pdf
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/wis38.pdf

These rules apply to commercial workshops or to sales of new machines.

if you have an old machine with a long arbor, it's not permitted to use
it in a commercial workshop (or where liability insurance would require
compliance with the latest rules) unless it _also_ meets the stopping
requirements. This may not be possible with an old arbor design, it may
be expensive with a new arbor design and positive locking.

In practice it's no big deal to achieve this with a 10" saw, so long as
you don't use DC injection braking that stops the thing with a sudden
bang. It was harder to achieve with spindle moulders (shapers in the
US) which caused a lot of replacement heads to be sold a few years ago
(and no bad thing too).

Post by foggytown
The only restriction is that
the maximum kerf width is 15.5 mm.

Why?

Post by foggytown
Now, who sells a TS in UK that will accept the cutter.

Anything over 10 years old.

Post by foggytown
In fact, who sells the cutters?

Anyone. Machine Mart sell Freuds and usually have them in stock, and you
can't get much more commonplace than MM.

[foggytown]

Well, all I can say is that Free was happily setting one up and using
one on his TV show. He said he checked with the appropriate agencies
and gave the info about the cut width as coming from them. Knowing the
paranoia of TV producers I would have thought that he was sure about
his facts. Still, I don't need one anyway!

FoggyTown

[DerbyDad03]

Only 1 word Chainsaw. I was an Ambulance man in the 70s and 80s when chainsaws
were available for hire and purchase. The amount of times people cut parts of
their bodies off or killed themselves and others with these tools was
phenomenal and yet they never got banned.

I have a friend that had a chainsaw kick back on him. I don't know the
details, just the outcome.

He's a really good looking guy except the massive & gross looking scar
that starts from his collar bone and runs up behind his right ear. You know
that wrinkled patch of skin often seen on burn victims? The entire side
of his neck looks like that. Apparently plastic surgery wasn't up to
today's standards back then.

[Bob Martin]

Post by Andy Dingley

Post by foggytown
For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.

Who ever said dado heads were illegal in the UK ?

Post by foggytown
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.)

Nope.
The legal constraint is about spin-down time with a heavy dado blade.
The machine must either come to rest quickly on its own, or it must have
brakes fitted to it. It's not trivial to brake a machine with a heavy
dado head that's only retained by a LH nut - it can work free when
stopping.

The only place I've seen dado sets listed is in the Machine Mart catalogue
which specifically says "NOT to be used on any machine with electric braking".
I have more sense than to doubt your word, Andy, but "I don't understand!".

[b***@all.costs]

Post by Bob Martin

Post by Andy Dingley

Post by foggytown
For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.

Who ever said dado heads were illegal in the UK ?

Post by foggytown
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.)

Nope.
The legal constraint is about spin-down time with a heavy dado blade.
The machine must either come to rest quickly on its own, or it must have
brakes fitted to it. It's not trivial to brake a machine with a heavy
dado head that's only retained by a LH nut - it can work free when
stopping.

The only place I've seen dado sets listed is in the Machine Mart catalogue
which specifically says "NOT to be used on any machine with electric braking".
I have more sense than to doubt your word, Andy, but "I don't understand!".

if the brake stops the shaft too quickly, the momentum of the heavy
dado blade will unwind the nut and release the dado. this is a Bad
Thing from a safety standpoint.

[Andy Dingley]

Post by Bob Martin
The only place I've seen dado sets listed is in the Machine Mart catalogue
which specifically says "NOT to be used on any machine with electric braking".

A sawblade is usually retained by a left-handed nut, not because it
tightens in use, but because it avoids loosening when rotating, from the
force applied to the blade. In fact if you ever start a saw with a loose
nut, the nut is likely to _slam_ tight, such that it's difficult to ever
get off again. If it's tight enough at the start that it doesn't move,
then it will neither tighten nor loosen.

However sudden braking operates in reverse, in terms of applied torque.
Brake the arbor and there's a risk that the nut will tend to work itself
loose. For a single sawblade this inertia isn't enough to cause a
problem, but a dado set may have four or five times the mass and that
could be enough to cause a problem. Electric braking with a VFD can be
accurately controlled and gentle, but the "cheap" DCI sort (which is
still vastly over-priced for the actual cost of it) is rather violent.
If you have an industrial cutter with a braked drive, it's usually
located over a couple of dowel pins as well as the central arbor shaft.
This means custom tooling for a particular manufacturer's arbors and
that gets expensive and inflexible.

[Leon]

Post by Andy Dingley

Post by Bob Martin
The only place I've seen dado sets listed is in the Machine Mart catalogue
which specifically says "NOT to be used on any machine with electric braking".

A sawblade is usually retained by a left-handed nut, not because it
tightens in use, but because it avoids loosening when rotating, from the
force applied to the blade. In fact if you ever start a saw with a loose
nut, the nut is likely to _slam_ tight, such that it's difficult to ever
get off again. If it's tight enough at the start that it doesn't move,
then it will neither tighten nor loosen.

Actually a saw blade is usually retained by a nut that tightens in the
opposite direction that the blade spins when cutting. That can be right
hand or left hand thread. Right hand threads are common on left tilt saws
and left hand threads are common right tilt saws. Electronic breaking will
tend to have a loosening effect on both right and left handed threads as the
blade momentum tries to continue and possible loosen the blade.
Basically what you said but the effect is the same on either right or left
handed threads.

[Leon]

Post by foggytown
Well, well, well. For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.) The only restriction is that
the maximum kerf width is 15.5 mm.

Still there might be some of government restriction as you seem to not be
able to find these saws very easily in the UK. Oppositely in the US in some
states it is legal to own a radar detector but illegal to use it. Perhaps
it is legal to use a dado blade on a saw in the UK but illegal to
manufacture one in the UK. Seems like you are in business if you can find
the right loop holes . It could be a "grandfathered in" type of acceptance
if the law.

[Mike Berger]

Right... I come from a long line of Foerstner Bit Tax Evaders.

Post by Leon
Still there might be some of government restriction as you seem to not be
able to find these saws very easily in the UK. Oppositely in the US in some
states it is legal to own a radar detector but illegal to use it. Perhaps
it is legal to use a dado blade on a saw in the UK but illegal to
manufacture one in the UK. Seems like you are in business if you can find
the right loop holes . It could be a "grandfathered in" type of acceptance
if the law.

[mike hide]

Post by Leon

Post by foggytown
Well, well, well. For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.) The only restriction is that
the maximum kerf width is 15.5 mm.

Still there might be some of government restriction as you seem to not be
able to find these saws very easily in the UK. Oppositely in the US in
some states it is legal to own a radar detector but illegal to use it.
Perhaps it is legal to use a dado blade on a saw in the UK but illegal to
manufacture one in the UK. Seems like you are in business if you can find
the right loop holes . It could be a "grandfathered in" type of
acceptance if the law.

I hear that handguns were deemed illegal in San Fran yesterday in the local
elections .All handguns have to be handed in sometime in the future . what
if youn refuse ,the constitution which trumps any local ordinance takes
precident .I wonder how the defenseless French feel when the idiots come to
burn their houses and kill their women and children......

[Charlie Self]

Post by mike hide
I hear that handguns were deemed illegal in San Fran yesterday in the local
elections .All handguns have to be handed in sometime in the future . what
if youn refuse ,the constitution which trumps any local ordinance takes
precident .I wonder how the defenseless French feel when the idiots come to
burn their houses and kill their women and children......You had better re-read the Constitution. It most definitely does NOT trump any local laws.

[mschips]

Charlie,
It's useless to try to reason with the whingers. The only thing more
rigid than the barrel of their guns is their thinking

[Lew Hodgett]

Post by mschips
Charlie,
It's useless to try to reason with the whingers. The only thing more
rigid than the barrel of their guns is their thinking

Time out.

To think requires a brain.

Lew

[mschips]

Lew,
Yes, you're right. My bad :-)

[mschips]

Lew,

I was remiss in pointing out that whingers generally use their (very)
little sausage shaped pseudo-brains. Come to think of it, their gun
barrels ARE (a LOT) MORE rigid than their thinking :-)

[Bruce T]

The intellectually lazy position is to blame some "thing" for a perceived
problem. Then you can "fix" the problem but outlawing the "thing." When
that doesn't work, you just outlaw more "things." The meteoric rise in
armed assaults in both Great Britan and Australia after the most recent
outlawing of "gun things" has led them to consider bans on "knife things"
and, I believe (in England at least), "whip things."

BruceT

Post by mike hide
I hear that handguns were deemed illegal in San Fran yesterday in the
local elections .All handguns have to be handed in sometime in the future
. what if youn refuse ,the constitution which trumps any local ordinance
takes precident .I wonder how the defenseless French feel when the idiots
come to burn their houses and kill their women and children......

[Leon]

Post by mike hide
I hear that handguns were deemed illegal in San Fran yesterday in the
local elections .All handguns have to be handed in sometime in the future
. what if youn refuse ,the constitution which trumps any local ordinance
takes precident .

If banning hand guns really works, banning cancer should naturally work
also.

I wonder how the defenseless French feel when the idiots come to

Post by mike hide
burn their houses and kill their women and children......

What goes around come around I suppose. After all, they had "no proof"
that riots might on the horizon. Defending certain people 2 1/2 years ago
is not working out too good for them now. WMD's apparently have been
unleashed in France for the last 2 weeks. Sometimes the writing on the wall
is ignored because there is no proof.

[Charlie Self]

Post by mike hide

Post by Leon

Post by foggytown
Well, well, well. For all you UK wreckers this should be interesting.
David Free (Great British Woodshop) used a stacked dado head cutter on
his show the other day. He explained that he checked with all the
appropriate agencies in the UK and was told it is perfectly legal to
use one as long as the TS is manufactured so as to accept one in the
first place. (Arbor length, I assume.) The only restriction is that
the maximum kerf width is 15.5 mm.

Still there might be some of government restriction as you seem to not be
able to find these saws very easily in the UK. Oppositely in the US in
some states it is legal to own a radar detector but illegal to use it.
Perhaps it is legal to use a dado blade on a saw in the UK but illegal to
manufacture one in the UK. Seems like you are in business if you can find
the right loop holes . It could be a "grandfathered in" type of
acceptance if the law.

I hear that handguns were deemed illegal in San Fran yesterday in the local
elections .All handguns have to be handed in sometime in the future . what
if youn refuse ,the constitution which trumps any local ordinance takes
precident .I wonder how the defenseless French feel when the idiots come to
burn their houses and kill their women and children......

Mike, ou really need to read the part of the Constitution that tells us
the states have power over anything not explicitly awarded to the Feds.
Local laws in many, maybe most, instances trump Federal laws. Do NOT
walk into Frisco with a handgun and expect a Constitutional attorney to
take your case.

What idiots are burning houses and killing women and children in
France? Seems to me the riots did a lot of vehicular damage, but I
haven't heard too many horror stories about women and kids being
killed, though I would imagine some houses have been burned. It's hard
to prove you're deserving of your fate by burning cars without
splashing over into housing.

Besides, if I were defending my home, I do believe I'd prefer a shotgun
with about #6 birdshot.

[CW]

It is legal to use one. It is not legal to sell a saw that will use one.
Similar to what the anti gunners have tried to do with bullets.

Post by Leon
Still there might be some of government restriction as you seem to not be
able to find these saws very easily in the UK. Oppositely in the US in some
states it is legal to own a radar detector but illegal to use it. Perhaps
it is legal to use a dado blade on a saw in the UK but illegal to
manufacture one in the UK. Seems like you are in business if you can find
the right loop holes . It could be a "grandfathered in" type of acceptance
if the law.

[foggytown]

Post by CW
It is legal to use one. It is not legal to sell a saw that will use one.
Similar to what the anti gunners have tried to do with bullets.

I suppose that makes as much sense as anything else these days.

FoggyTown

[John Young]

I checked on this a while back and found that when "our masters"
decided that we might hurt ourselves if left to our own devices, a
decision was made to shorten the length of the arbor so that you
cannot fit dado blades to any new saws.

Prior to that, you could buy a saw one day and return and buy the
dado blades the next, but certainly not at the same time.

Not sure if this is one of those EU rules that are followed without
question in UK but nowhere else in Europe.

But if you can get an older Table saw with the longer arbor, you can
buy and fit the dado blades. Perhaps they are still available in
europe???

John

[Andy Dingley]

Post by John Young
I checked on this a while back

Where?

Post by John Young
a
decision was made to shorten the length of the arbor so that you
cannot fit dado blades to any new saws.

Untrue.

Post by John Young
Prior to that, you could buy a saw one day and return and buy the
dado blades the next, but certainly not at the same time.

Completely and utterly untrue.

[AAvK]

free.uk.woodworking

[Stu93]

replying to foggytown, Stu93 wrote:
Axminster Tools in the UK now supply two table saws (in their 'Trade' Range,
that accept stacked dado head cutters. The machines are the AT254TS and the
AT254LTS table saws. The stacked dado head cutters are 204mm diameter to fit
these machines (or others using the same size blade (that have the additional
length blade arbor), *and creates grooves from 6.35mm-20.64mm*. These blades
Comprise of twin out blades and 6 chipper blades plus spacers and have a 30mm
bore. I guess that kinda blows out your comments that they can only have a
maximum cut of 15.5mm...!

[Watchtower]

Axminster tools sell them , around about £150.00

[k***@notreal.com]

On Sat, 6 Feb 2021 16:30:59 +0000, Watchtower

Post by Watchtower
Axminster tools sell them , around about £150.00

I wonder why it took fifteen years for all this to come out?

[knuttle]

Post by k***@notreal.com
On Sat, 6 Feb 2021 16:30:59 +0000, Watchtower

Post by Watchtower
Axminster tools sell them , around about £150.00

I wonder why it took fifteen years for all this to come out?

I thought Stacked dados were legal and wobble dados were illegal?

[Leon]

Post by k***@notreal.com
On Sat, 6 Feb 2021 16:30:59 +0000, Watchtower

Post by Watchtower
Axminster tools sell them , around about £150.00

I wonder why it took fifteen years for all this to come out?

I bet it all has something to do with the "metric system". ;~)