Upgrading table saw motor. Goofy idea?

[scott spencer]

Let us know how that works out. I have my doubts that 1/32" is going to reduce your load all that much. In theory, it would be 25% but I don't detect a lot of difference with mine. If your blades are loaded up with resin on the tooth sides, that will cause huge amounts of friction so with a brand new blade you will note quite a difference at first until it loads up.

I noticed a significant difference when switching between like blades of 3/32" thin kerf and 1/8" full kerf on my contractor and hybrid saw. A 3/32" TK blade is 25% thinner than a 1/8" full, or a 1/8" full kerf is 33% thicker than a 3/32" TK....whichever way you slice it, that difference is pretty substantial, and your motor definitely sees it. If all other variables are the same, the 3/32" thin kerf should always require less force to feed, which is especially noticeable when ripping thick materials and nearing the stall point.

Trying a good 3/32" 24T TK ripper (whether Forrest, Freud, Infinity, CMT, DW, Amana, Tenryu, or other) is definitely worth a shot before going to the trouble and expense of getting a bigger motor.

[Joe Angrisani]

.....I just got the 20T WWII blade, just for that reason, so I'm going to give that a try.....

Please follow-up and let us know what you found, George.

Thanks!

[Dave Aronson]

I have the same problem with my Jet contractor table saw. I just purchased the Freud 24T rip blade thin kerf. I'll report on the results. I was thinking of replacing the motor with a 2hp single phase motor. I would think that wouldn't affect the trunions too much.

[George Gyulatyan]

Please follow-up and let us know what you found, George.

Thanks!

Will certainly do so over the weekend, Joe. Can't wait to see how it goes. For reference, until now I've been using the Freud 40T Glue Line Rip FK blade. It does produce nice smooth cuts.

The WWII 20T blade is also full kerf. I'll give that a try before attempting the TK versions, although I am thinking getting the TK version of Freud Glue Line blade might not be a bad idea for making final cuts in thick pieces, just because I am pretty sure the WWII will give rougher cuts, making trips to the jointer necessary.

Trips to the jointer are no big deal for 90* cuts, but setting the fence on that thing is such a hassle that I'd rather not have to deal with for jointing angled cuts.

[George Gyulatyan]

Now that the conversation has turned to TK blades, how much do blade stabilizers decrease depth of cut?

[scott spencer]

Will certainly do so over the weekend, Joe. Can't wait to see how it goes. For reference, until now I've been using the Freud 40T Glue Line Rip FK blade. It does produce nice smooth cuts.

The WWII 20T blade is also full kerf. I'll give that a try before attempting the TK versions, although I am thinking getting the TK version of Freud Glue Line blade might not be a bad idea for making final cuts in thick pieces, just because I am pretty sure the WWII will give rougher cuts, making trips to the jointer necessary.

Trips to the jointer are no big deal for 90* cuts, but setting the fence on that thing is such a hassle that I'd rather not have to deal with for jointing angled cuts.

The Freud 30T glue line rippers (LM74/LM75) aren't recommended for materials over 1" thick. They have very tight side clearances which gives them highly polished edges, but can also cause burning in thick materials...though just trimming an edge might not cause that problem. Something like the 30T WWII TK is better suited for thicker materials than the 30T GLR's IMO. Many of the better 24T rippers are marginally capable of a glue ready edge as is.

Stabilizers definitely limit blade height...how much depends on their diameter. You might find that you don't need a stabilizer, so it's worth trying without first.

Here are some tips for picking saw blades for you if you're interested.

[Steve Griffin]

I upgraded the motor to my Rigid contractor style saw when the stock one finally burnt out after about a million miles of cutting. I went with Grizzly H5382, which is a 2 HP induction motor. I kept it to 110 volt.

It was a bigger improvement than I expected. It has noticeably more power, and also runs quieter with less vibration. Sort of hums with the sound of a nice cabinet saw now.

I don't think I would want to try a 3HP or 220 on this level of saw, but a modest upgrade in motor is seems to be no problem.

[Kevin Presutti]

I believe the recommended stabilizer diameter is directly proportional to the blade diameter by 1/2. I think it is on Forrest's website. I'm sure I have read that somewhere.

[Leo Graywacz]

I can stall my 3HP motor on my Delta UniSaw pretty easy pushing 8/4 hard maple through it. 7 1/2 HP is when you start to be able to do a lot more without a lot of chances of bogging down.

3HP will be a substantial improvement if it doesn't rip itself apart under heavy load.

[Harvey Pascoe]

Well, I use 7.5" Matsushita blades with .060" kerf on a 3hp saw and it goes through anything like a hot knife thru butter. But then, my work is small. But I know from experience that an underpowered saw is no fun and a thin kerf blade is a stop-gap measure that will have him wanting a more powerful saw as soon as he starts stretching the limits of the thin kerf.

[Harvey Pascoe]

A low tooth count is just another stop gap measure that causes other problems. Fewer teeth means each one is doing more work and will dull faster and you'll be sending out for sharpening that much more often. Plus, it works harder, builds more heat.

[Harvey Pascoe]

That's weird. My 3hp Unisaw motor was way heavier then my 1.5hp contractor saw motor. The Unisaw motor doesn't really have a frame, just a couple
of tabs.

The difference between the Leeson 1.5 and 3 hp motors designed for the unisaw is nine pounds. Isn't a contractors saw designed to be light and portable, so why would you expect it to have a heavy motor in it? Unisaw motors are rated for continuous duty. I doubt a contractor's saw is.

[George Gyulatyan]

Will certainly do so over the weekend, Joe.

My apologies for not following up with this. Life decided to get in the way of my weekend plans One of the water pipes burst in the house, so, figured this would be an opportunity to upgrade to copper. By my projections, I won't be able to get to blade comparison for a couple of weeks.

[George Gyulatyan]

Today I got a chance to try out the new WWII 20 tooth blade and compare it against the Freud GLR on some hard maple. The piece was already planed to about 1 1/2".

I was definitely able to feed the piece through at a faster rate with the WWII and overall it felt like the piece was going through a lot more easily. Also, even more importantly, there were no burns. The cut quality was somewhat rougher, but not by much, certainly not as bad as I thought it would be.

Here is the picture of the cut made with the WWII:
WWII.jpg

This one is a cut I made with the Freud Glue Line Rip blade:
Freud_Cut1.jpg

The next one is also a cut I made with the Freud Glue Line Rip blade, except after reading the little instruction sheet that came with the WWII. In the troubleshooting section, a recommendation they make for preventing burning is to raise the blade about 1" to 2" above the workpiece . I raised the blade a little over 1" and made the cut, and...
Freud_Cut2.jpg

As you can see there is much less burning with the blade raised higher than what would most recommend, something to keep in mind. Note that there is still some burning compared to none with the WWII, which is due to the fact that the feed rate was still slower with the Freud GLR blade.

Also note that the burning occurs on both halves of the piece, showing that this is not due to misalignment.

One other observation. The WWII's kerf is a hair thinner than Freud GLR's as I could tell from the very slight gap in my ZCI which was made by the Freud. Incidentally, according to Freud's website, their full kerf blades are .126" rather than .125".

[Mark Godlesky]

Thanks for following up with the results. Interesting about the higher blade.