Chop saw blade for cutting rubber, plastic...

[Sean Rainaldi]

Hi,

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a good blade for cutting rubber and plastic on my Dewalt Miter saw.

I have a Forrest Duraline hi at blade, would that be a good blade?

Thanks.

[Cliff Holmes]

As long as the material's not too flexible/thin, any wood blade should work fine. Just make sure the blade has a negative hook angle. If it's on a chop saw, it should have that anyway.

[Cliff Holmes]

Hmm, looks like that Forrest blade has a positive hook angle, that should only be used on a saw that's pulling the wood against a stop. If your miter saw's a slider, you should switch to a negative hook blade.

[Sean Rainaldi]

Well, the saw I have is the De Walt DW-718.

The Hi at is not the correct blade for that?

[Cliff Holmes]

Yeah, I would change to the Chopmaster instead. As I understand it, a positive hook blade (where the edge is tilted "forward" into the direction of rotation) is much more likely to catch and go scurrying across the top of the wood. It's also more likely to catch the back edge of the cut as you're going forward and pull the wood up. Negative hook blades are tilted "back" so they're far less likely to do so.

Positive hook blades are also likely to grab and shatter plastics like PVC. That's why you see vinyl siding installers put the blades of their saws backwards when cutting siding, so you're more "scraping" the vinyl away than actually cutting into it. You could do the same in your situation.

[Sean Rainaldi]

Well, I have a chop master on there right now. That OK for rubber and plastic then?

Can't remember what I bought the hi at for, it's hanging on my garage wall collecting dust.

[Cliff Holmes]

I would think so, but a call to Forrest with exact details of what you're cutting would be a wise thing to do.

[Keith Westfall]

Rubber??? Unless it is stiff enough to hold out like a board, you may want to be pretty careful...

Will be interested in how you make out though...

[Myk Rian]

Doing siding on the neighbors' house, we turned the blade backwards.
If you're concerned about teeth coming off, get a non-carbide blade.

[Chris Padilla]

I've cut PVC with my Chopmaster. I don't like to do it all that much but when I do, I whip the blade down pretty darn fast. If you linger too long you'll build up melted plastic around the kerf. If I have a fair amount of PVC to cut, I'll throw the DeWalt factory blade on there. Again, cutting quickly seems to work for me.

[Rich Engelhardt]

I was wondering if anyone can recommend a good blade for cutting rubber and plastic on my Dewalt Miter saw.

Yep - sure can - after cutting a whole house of that foam plastic trim.

Whatever blade comes on the cheap CMS you buy to cut the plastic will work just fine.

Unlike wood dust, plastic dust is sharp, hard and gritty. It gets into everything - especially under the table. Every time you change from left to right, or vice versa, you can hear and feel it just grinding away.

I'd personally never put a piece of plastic under any blade in my DeWalt.
That's what I have a Ryobi for - and it does a wonderful (but raspy) job of it.