New saw blade

I replaced mine with a Forrest Woodworker II combo blade, the full width one. Works great. But you can’t get that at the BORG (orange or blue). Eventually I want to pick up a nice plywood blade but lately I’m not using much plywood so the WWII plus blue-tape on the cut line is sufficient.

-- Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things.

I think it was WOOD magazine that just did a comparison between the standard blades and the “thin kerf” blades. They were very impressed with the thin kerf blades. They didn’t have any more deviation than the standard thickness blades and were right up there with cutting speed. While I’m not knowledgable enough to recommend a specific blade, anything that saves our precious (and expensive) wood might be worth a look.

-- Behind the Bark is a lot of Heartwood----Charles, Centennial, CO

Look for the Industrial line of FREUD, I use this excellent combination blade that I highly recomend.
http://www.acetoolonline.com/product-p/fre-lu72m010.htm

-- Francisco Luna, San Francisco Bay Area.

If all else is equal, more teeth means a cleaner cut, but cleaner cut doesn’t come without a downside, and cleaner doesn’t always equate to “better”. It really depends on what you’re doing and what you want to achieve. More teeth pose higher resistance to the saw (slower feedrate, more bogging), and more chance of burning to occur, so you’re more limited with the thickness of the material with 80T than with a 40T. Fewer teeth tends to mean rougher cut but easier feedrate with less bogging, and usually poorer crosscut performance. The 40T to 50T range is a good compromise for fairly clean cuts, good ripping efficiency, and acceptable crosscuts…they’re good at many things, but excellent at none. The limitations of the general purpose/combo blades tend to come in the extreme ranges of thick ripping and ultra fine crosscuts, where a 24T-30T dedicated ripper and a 60T to 80T dedicated crosscut blade each excel respectively but perform poorly outside of their intended cutting range.

HD carries the Freud Diablo and Ridgid Titanium (also by Freud). Lowes carries the Freud Avanit TK series. LU86R010 Industrial, Freud Avanti TK306, and Diablo D1040X are very similar and are all better than the stock Ridgid blade, and none will break the bank. The Industrial blades have thicker carbide. You might also consider one of the 50T combo blades…Avanti TK906, Diablo D1050, Ridgid Titanium R1050C, or the Freud Industrial LU83R010.

If you want top shelf – The Forrest WWII is an excellent general purpose blade. There are alternatives to the WWII 40T that are as good… The Ridge Carbide TS2000 is actually made a few miles from the Forrest factory, and was started by former Forrest employees. The TS2000 comes in both thin and full kerf (your saw will benefit from the TK), and is available for ~ $80 shipped from Holbren.com with woodnet10, SMC10, or BT310 discount codes. The 50T Infinity 010-150 is an extremely capable 50T combo blade. It’s available for ~ $60-$70 from Infinitytools.com.

The DeWalt Precision Trim series is a very good thin kerf series that’s a great bargain when on sale…CPODewalt.com has some good values on that series. Roughly comparable to the lower priced Freuds.

Fantastic Info KnotScott!!!! I appreciate it greatly.

-- Measuring twice and cutting once only works if you read the tape right!

I have a Bosch portable table saw and use the Ridged Titanium combo blade on it. I am very impressed! It does slow a little on thick crosscuts, but other than that it works great. It leaves a nice smooth edge, well, still needs to be dressed for finish, but pretty smooth.

-- Finding satisfaction in creation

I used to use the the Forrest WWII exclusively for general cutting, crosscutting and less than 4/4 ripping. I still use a WWII quite a bit. They are excellent blades and deserving of their reputation for being the highest quality.

A while back I decided to try a Ridge Carbide TS2000 and I am of a mind that it is every bit as good as the WWII. And the TS2000 is often $20 – $30 less expensive than a WWII.

Cut quality side by side I dont think you could tell the difference, both are absolutely excellent. The quality of construction, size and thickness of the carbide are similar.

For specialty blade, high / low tooth count for man made / ply / heavy ripping I use Freud blades. Freud blades give an excellent cut but tend to have smaller carbide, even on the ripping blades.

I can also vouch for the Forrest WWII if you want a great all-purpose blade.

I do have one warning about going with a thin-kerf blade: I have a Ridgid TS3660, and the splitter that comes with the saw is too thick to use with the thin kerf. As the workpiece passes the blade, the kerf will bind on the splitter.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

I upgraded to a better rigid blade but can’t remember which and am very satisfied with it in both crosscut and ripping.

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

”...I do have one warning about going with a thin-kerf blade: I have a Ridgid TS3660, and the splitter that comes with the saw is too thick to use with the thin kerf. As the workpiece passes the blade, the kerf will bind on the splitter….”

Charlie – I think you’re referring to a recent issue with some of the TK blades that Ridgid supplied with the 3660, which were actually ultra thin kerf blades. IIRC, the splitter is ~ 0.087 and most standard TK blades fall in the range of 0.090 and 0.104” which should work fine with the 3660’s splitter. For some reason they supplied some blades that were thinner than standard and thinner than the splitter, which is dangerous and really could have opened them up for a lawsuit IMO. All the TK’s mentioned so far should work well.

Scott, thanks for that information.

I was absolutely baffled by it when I bought the saw. I could not figure out why they would ship the saw with a blade that would not work with the splitter. I checked on the internet and could find nothing about it at the time, so I guess I must have been one of the first it happened to.

-- Charlie M. "Woodworking - patience = firewood"

What blade would you recommend for ripping 2” pine? Any of the glue line blades suitable?