Adjustable Dado

[rmdial]

I have an adjustable dado that belonged to my dad. I have used it on one occasion but am a little nervous due to my limited experience. It is a 7' Carbide Tipped Craftsman Dado. Model 3263.

I understand I turn it to adjust width of dado cut. But I am confused on setting the width. The instructions do not mention securing an allen screw or anything so the setting does not change. Or does it keep the width all on it's own? Instructions say to loosen arbor nut, dial the hub to desired width, and retighten arbor nut. Is this normal and I should not worry?

Thanks in advance.

[LCHIEN]

Once you tighten the arbor nut that should keep it from changing. There's no lock on the wobble dado.

I recall I used mine once. As a seven inch you will need the 1/4" spacer, I believe to avoid having the dado and the saw wanting to occupy the same space.
Maybe you'll have to leave off the left arbor washer if the dado extends too far. I think it takes up 3/4" on the arbor. and you only took off 1/2 inch spacer. I have no idea of the safety of leaving off that washer though.

You may also have to engage in contortions to get the wobble dado onto the arbor without removing the dust shroud. since the hole through the stack is 3/4" thick it has to go straight on not tiltable and that makes it interfere with the shroud.

The proper solution according to Ryobi (and my experience) is to not use a wobble dado nor not use Larger than a 6 inch stack dado and then you can take off all 3/4" of spacers if you need and put on 13/16" of dado stack and not have the tips hit the housing and still get the 2 washers and nut safely on. and not have an issue getting the stack on because you can tilt each element.

And you can trust me on that. I own and have tried on my BT3000 a 8" Craftsman wobble dado, an 8" Freud stack dado and finally bought a 6" stack dado (Freud) because the last one truly fits and works the best. I also own a Freud 8" dado set that only does 1/4" and 3/8" dados and it works because it is not 3/4" wide and I can leave some spacers on.