Saw blade input

[Jeff Rowley]

I'm cutting down a bunch of 8/4 lumber to build an end grain butcher block counter top. It's a mix of hard maple, cherry, and some exotics. I have a Powermatic contractor saw, and have cut plenty of 8/4 before with a Forrest WWII 40T blade.

When trying to hack through some canarywood, it's bogging down. I'm guessing that it means the blade needs to be sharpened. I'll send my current 40T out for sharpening, but need a replacement in the meantime. I'll probably go with another Forrest, should I go with the 30T combination or the 20T rip blade? I'm leaning towards the 30T because once I rip all of this into 1.75" strips, I'll be chopping it into 3" lengths (I have an unused Freud 'Ultimate Cutoff' blade I had planned to do the crosscuts with), but could maybe do both with a new WWII? The 20T is about $20 cheaper than the 30T also. Are the 20T cuts as clean as what I get with the 40T (or would get with the 30T)?

Any thoughts?

[Jeff Willard]

Were you ripping the canary? If so, I'm surprised you didn't stall it. With a lower powered motor like that, if you consistently rip thick stock, I think I'd look to a thin kerf blade, as opposed to the lower tooth count 1/8" kerf. I'd find a 24 tooth TK for such applications.

[Paul Murphy]

I also think for 8/4" stock you should be using a thin kerf blade on a saw with the power you mentioned. When I had a contractors saw I ended up using a thin kerf Freud ATB 24 tooth blade with their anti-friction coating. That blade was good for most of my ripping and crosscutting. Sometimes I would use a higher tooth count blade for crosscutting, and the one I had was full kerf, so I had to use a slower feed rate. IIRC the full kerf wasn't too bad for feed rate in crosscutting, but ripping could stall the motor.

[Jeff Rowley]

I ended up getting the 20T Forrest rip blade. Ran a whole bunch of wood through it today. The canary was the worst of the bunch, but they were all very hard woods (hard maple, cherry, walnut, padauk, bubinga, sapelle, leopardwood, and the canarywood). Got through everything, the 20T certainly doesn't leave as smooth a finish as the 40T.

The Freud 80T crosscut is cutting everything like butter. I'll have about 650 1.75"x1.75"x3" blocks by the end of the day. It's about 50% maple, 25% cherry and 25% a mix of everything else. Will start putting everything together at random, so it ends up looking like the mosaic tiles on the wall.

[Jim Becker]

I have the 20t rip blade from Forrest and it's a real cutter when you need to deal with thick and hard. But yes, it's not a "smooth finish" blade. I can live with that since I use it for a specific purpose and don't expect that smooth surface.

[scott spencer]

Hi Jeff - I think the 30T WWII thin kerf would be ideal for what you're doing. It cuts with nearly the efficiency of my 24T Freud LU87, Infinity TK, and Leitz/Irwin TK rippers, and leaves an edge nearly as clean as the 40T WWII. It'll also leave acceptable crosscuts in many situations. If you're not concerned with the cut quality, the 24T rippers should zip right through it with relative ease.