Blade for ripping 8/4 stock?

I don’t know scott. I have the same saw and untill a few days ago was using the blade that comes with it. My experience has been that any time that I bog the saw down its feed related. Recently I have been ” hoging out” landscape timbers with my dato set at 7/8 wide x 1 inch deep. This quite hard wood (for a soft wood) and must be fed slowly but dosn’t stall unless I get too pushy. perhaps you have a week motor or some other mechanical problem that only shows up under this kind of stress. Like you I love this saw and wouldn’t even consider anything else.

-- RTB. "dumb animals are not stupid they simply can't talk "

I just made a few of these with the same table saw. While its a little underpowered, I gfot through it without too much issue other than a little burn on the side of the rock maple. (110v power)

I’m using a Freud LU87R010, which seems to be the trick. My combo blades don’t handle it well at all, but I got a good smooth rip using that blade.

-- Dylan Vanderhoof - New woodworker in training. =)

I guess I should try a true rip blade and see what that does. I just called the Ridgid service center in my area and they said I could bring the motor in and they could test the load capacity on the spot to make sure that is not the problem.

-- Scott Wilson - Bear with me, I'm learning!

Scott,

I use the WWII full kerf blade on my 1 1/2 hp Craftsman saw and it does tend to slow down on 8/4 maple but if I keep the feed steady it will rip it just fine. I think that taking the motor in for a test is the best approach as it should be capable of ripping the maple, especially with the thin kerf blade.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Ripping calls for as few teeth as possible. You might try the Freud 10” 18 tooth industrial rip blade.

I use a 12” 14 tooth on my saw and it will cut just about anything.

You risk kick backs and heating the blade if it has too many teeth.

Freud Blade number LM71M010 for 5/8” arbors

Freud’s Lu think kerf series blades have too many teeth to rip safely for extended time and thick boards.

Here is a link for Freud blades http://www.freudtools.com/c-8-industrial-blades.aspx

There are other blade companies out there who sell good ripping blades. The key is to make sure they have deep gullets and few teeth.

-- Oldworld, Fair Oaks, Ca

Maybe it’s the fence? Try checking the fence to make sure it’s parrallel to the blade.

-- Tony, Ohio

if you are using an underpowered saw you’ll want to get a blade without
too many teeth, a thinner kerf, and very sharp.

A lot of struggle you’ll get with contractor saws is because of the
blade binding and burning the wood as the cut releases internal
tension in the stock.

My preference is to snap a line, bandsaw to it, let the wood sit overnight,
the joint one edge and rip it parallel on the TS.

Sounds like a lot of work, but binding and burning isn’t much of
a problem for me this way. BTW – I have a cabinet saw so power
isn’t a problem but tension in wood is always a problem if you don’t
plan for it.

Also a splitter the same thickness of the blade helps a lot, as do featherboards,
a parallel fence (I used to set it out by 1/32” but no longer do so), and using
a facing on the fence that ends at the back of the blade, as with European saws.

-- http://amherstcabinets.com - also a marketing consultant with expertise in direct response marketing for woodworking and online businesses - http://COPYMATCH.COM

Scott, I have the TS3650 and work with 8/4 for butcher block boards. I had a lot of problems with the saw laboring and scortching the wood using the Wood Worker II for cross cutting and the CMT glue line rip. These were fairly new blades. I recently purchased the Freud 80 tooth Ultimate Cutoff and their Glue Line Rip blade.

Many people swear by the WWII, but I will never buy another Forest blade again. The Freud blade cuts through 8/4 like butter. My TS3650 acts like a totally different saw now. The Forest blades generates an annoying high pitch whine, where the Freud’s are unbelievably quiet. I was ripping with the CMT then running the edge on my joiner to clean it up. I have eliminated this step with the Freud glue line rip blade. I
go straight from the saw to the glue clamps now. When I cross cut the ripped glue ups, the edges are razor sharp making the second glue up process for the end grain board a snap.

I had a similar experience a few years ago with the Forest double sided melamine blade. I cut a lot of melamine for my custom closet business and I found the Freud to cut cleaner and is far less noisy than the Forest version.

There are a lot of different blades out there, and I have tried quite a few, but the Freud products seem to always work best for my saw. By the way, Tony made a good point, if your fence is off a little, no blade is going to fix that problem. Make sure your alignment is good.

-- I don't make mistakes, only design changes....

I have the same saw and have been using a rip blade (dewalt) to resaw 3 inch thick walnut and haven’t had any problems with it boging down. I think I would try a ripping blade and if youstill had problems check the motor. Good luck.

-- Glenn, New Mexico

Thanks guys. I’m going to get a good rip blade and try that out after I double check the fence and blade alignment and see what that does.

-- Scott Wilson - Bear with me, I'm learning!

Its worth noting that the stock splitter on the TS3650 is for thin kerf blades. I haven’t found an aftermarket splitter that I like and would work easily on the 3650 that is full kerf yet, so I’m definitely sticking to TK blades for the time being.

I also use a combination of a Freud rip and a freud cutoff blade rather than a combo, I tried a WWII TK so I didn’t have to change blades so frequently since its more of a pain than on my RAS and just wasn’t happy with the results compared to the more purpose built blades I had for my RAS.

-- Dylan Vanderhoof - New woodworker in training. =)

not sure what the problem is. i have a 1 1/2 hp jet table saw and a ryobi 10” 24 tooth blade (it was the only one i had when i bought the saw used, it had an hss blade). it went through 1 1/2” prupleheart really well. i think you might just have too many teeth there. when you get burns you usually have too many teeth. i would try a rougher more aggressive rip blade.