Wood Magazine revised there review of the Table Saw Blade reviewed Dec/Jan 2008.

I read the report and of the cheap thin kerf saw blades, I’ve tried the Freud Diablo.

Must say it was a disappointment. Poor cut quality. Must have been a fluke ! Their report gave it high marks !

-- ..... art for lifes sake ... danwalters@lumberjocks.com

I got the Freud P410 on 12/20/07 but haven’t tried it yet. When I do, I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

The Wood Whisperer had an interesting post the other day on this subject. I think he referenced this article too. He was commenting about how subjective the reviews seemed to be and how the publications have even contradicted themselves between past and present reviews.

I’m glad we now have the Reviews function on this site. Our views could probably be called subjective as well but at least we know there is much less likelihood of bias due to advertising or paid-reviewer dollars…

-- Jeff, St. Paul, MN

Thanks for the heads up Karson. I’ve got the Amana 610400 on my saw and I can’t say enough good things about it. I think I paid 46 bucks for it at Woodzone.

-- Carl Rast, Pelion, SC

I will try to be kind and say it is disappointing for any publication to print comparative testing of products and not validate their test procedures before publishing. As the article says, many make purchasing decisions based on itheir original published test results.

At our level, most of the info we get is antedotal, so a publication that performs a comparative review of many makes of a product has a lot of influence on the consuming public.

I also understand people/organizations make mistakes. I hope this will lead to a more critical approach to test procedures and assumptions in the future.

Thanks Karson

Dalec

Thanks for the heads-up Karson.

-- Maplewood, MN

Thank you for the link.

-- Hope Never fails

when I did my interview with Robin Lee, we chatted quite a bit about Reviews. He mentioned the difference between giving a review based on one’s own personal experience and one that “should” be the result of testing. Testing “should” be done with MANY of the same product to make sure you aren’t rating one that isn’t the standard, and you also have to be cautious re: HOW the product is used. For example, my reviews (pretty simple projects that I do and with little woodworking experience) is not going to be based on the rigorous use, that perhaps Karson may put it through.

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Thanks and now I’m going to make a few zeroclearance inserts.

Have a great day,

-- Bob Lance, DE

I dunno. I’ve got the Freud Diablo and have had great luck with it. So maybe Dan’s blade is a fluke.

I did also read the article in my copy of Wood Magazine. They report it’s the first time they’ve ever redone a field test like this, and why. I see it as an honest approach and am impressed that they did come forth on this.

Thanx Karson!

-- Bob Vila would be so proud of you!

Same here Dadoo, I’ve had one since before Xmas and it has done me well. mike

-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com

I appreciate it that the Wood Magazine realized their testing error and their integrity in re-testing and publishing their revised testing results.

Dalec

guess the diablo i got was a lone oddball.

may have missed an operation or something.

maybe a machine setup piece.

seemed like it was out of balance.
didn’t stay on the saw long.
trashed it.
bought something different the next day.

i’ve been more then happy with other freud blades.

had good luck with cheaper irwin blades too… thin kerf ones

-- ..... art for lifes sake ... danwalters@lumberjocks.com

I noticed that the latest March 2008 issue in “Sounding Board section” stated that that they had problems and they moved the Freud P410 up into the Top Tools in the review. They also referenced their web site which is where I got this link.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

So Karson, what do you use?

-- Stevethepeeve -- I'm no rocket surgeon

I use a salvage used blade that fits my saw. They are all profesional saw blades. the current blade was donated to the toy workshop by Sealey Mattress company. It has the 1 1/8” arbor and 16” diamater that my saw uses.

All of the blades Rip, ATB, Triple Chip designs were picked up at a tool company that sold used equipment. They would buy out companies that were going out fo business and also the tool room. They would then sell the tools. My blades cost about $25.00 each, some had been sharpened and not yet used. it would cost that much to sharpen them.

The coarsest blade has about 60 tooth and the finest about 120 teeth.

I don’t know if I could buy an off the shelf blade. The one real problem is that the cerf cut is about 135 thou. so it messes up ripping wood. so i use the bandsaw a lot for that unless I’ve got lots of wood to work with.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com