: what kind of device do you use for a spacer between your blades? thanks,
: Bob

Bob - There are a few considerations in the design of a blade spacer for gang cutting. The total thickness of the spacer and any shims has to be a little more than 1/4" (for 1/4" strips) to compensate for the clearance between the blade teeth and the blade disk. If you made a spacer exactly 1/4", the actual distance between the teeth of the adjacent blades would be less than 1/4". The spacer should also be round, with a centered 5/8" arbor hole. Its diameter should be the same as the saw's arbor flange to prevent distortion stresses on the blades when the arbor nut is tightened.

I cut a spacer from some 1/4" ash, using a fly cutter in a drill press. I didn't trust using 1/4" plywood due to the possibility of voids common in that material, which could cause an out of balance situation and vibration. The arbor hole was drilled with a 5/8" Forstner bit. To adjust the spacing to produce 1/4" strips, I tried several different thicknesses of shims cannabalized from a stacked dado cutting set. You could use about anything for shims, like playing card stock, different thicknesses of paper, cardboard, etc.

Setting the thing up required a lot of cutting of scrap. Your first step is to get the spacing correct, ignoring the fence to blade spacing for the moment. Once you are happy with the thickness of the outer strip, adjust your fence until you get the inner strip the same thickness. When you are happy with the inner strip, rip away.

The strips I produced with the above set up worked great. For another boat I also made a spacer for 3/16" strips. One thing I will do for the next strip making session is cut the strips a frog's hair thick and then thickness plane all of them to the final dimension. This is not to smooth the surfaces, which are fine right off the saw, but to get identical thicknesses for all strips. This becomes important when cutting the bead and cove edges, so that the beads and coves can be accurately and exactly centered. But that is another story..... Good luck. - John