There are a couple of things wrong with this technique however.

1. It's unlikely that anyone is going to want to make gratings out of plywood; 2. the grating is only half as strong as it should be because, instead of interlocking pieces, half of the material is cut away to make the "grating" and, finally, 3. it's hard to manouver a large piece of plywood on the radial and especially if the grating is to be made an odd shape or be shaped to fit around projections in the cockpit (or wherever it is to be used).

To make the grating out of solid timber therefore requires some kind of jig arrangement to assure accuracy in the dadoes and to eliminate a lot of measuring.

The photos show how I did this.

I positioned a couple of pieces of scrap aluminum angle on the radial arm table, exactly 7/8" to the right of the blade. (Seven- eigths of an inch is the dimension of each of the slats of my proposed grating). These I screwed down exactly parallel to the saw blade with a couple of dry-wall screws in each angle. I used a spare piece of grating slat to achieve the exact spacing between them The two angles would form the channel in which the sliding stop block would run.

I used a spare piece of slat to make the stop block. I rabbetted the end to allow the slats that would be cut to fit UNDER the stop block. Then I screwed an old drawer handle onto the top of the stop block for ease of handling.

To use the jig, the procedure is as follows.

Cut the end dadoe by eye, using the width of your dado blade to achieve the right size cut. Shove this to the right until it fits UNDER the stop block and the shoulder buts up against it. Cut the next dadoe. Pull back on the stop block. Move the grating stock to the right until the dadoe you have just cut lines up with the stop block. Push the stop block into the dado. Cut the next dado.

Repeat as many times as necessary.

If you have selected the dadoe blade properly as the right size for the slot (which you have to do anyway) and the depth is correct (which it must be anyway) you now have one piece of grating stock completely dadoed. Continue with all the stock you have cut and you are ready to assemble the grating.

Using a jig like this will assure that you won't ruin that expensive piece of teak by miss-cutting and miss-alignment.

What did I use for my grating?

Why a landscape tie of course!

I waited until I came across one of the real heavy, resinous, reddish ones and used that!

A FOLLOW-UP NOTE:

I found out the other day that I needed a couple more slats for the grating that I had prepared previously. I re-mounted the jig and cut them out. I found that they DIDN'T FIT properly. I learned that when you re-mount the jig, (even though I had used the exact same screw holes and been very careful to align it) that something is always going to be a little off! Either the orientation of the radial arm or a slight miss-alignment of the stop block guides. This does not compromise the usefulness of the jig but I have learned now to ALWAYS cut a few extra slats to make up for rejects, breakage or whatever. ALWAYS cut out the ALL of the slats for each individual project at the SAME TIME!