DOH! Under the bus I go.

[Rob Luter]

I hope that throwing myself under the bus will keep someone from making the bonehead mistake I made last night.

THE GOOD: I salvaged some maple butcher block benchtops from a local manufacturing facility that recently changed hands. While not pristine, with a little work I expected they'd be suitable for combining into a single maple benchtop that will ultimately be about 3 1/2" thick.

THE BAD: The slabs had been wet at some time and several glue joints were letting go. It seemed like a simple task to rip the slabs along the failing glue joints, clean the joints up, then reglue.

THE UGLY: It seems that the original manufacturer saw fit to install 3/8 threaded steel rod at each end of the slab to supplement the glue joints. The plugs for the holes were all but invisible. Whoever installed them did a great job. I noticed the ends of the rod when the slab was on the runout table after cutting. The quality of the cut through the steel was really nice

THE SURPRISE: I looked at blade (stock blade on a Ridgid TS3650) and all the teeth were still there. Not only that, they seemed pretty sharp. A test cut confirmed that while they were dulled somewhat, I was able to rip the hard maple without too much effort.

I'll be dropping the blade off to be sharpened today, and picking up a spare at the same time. You can bet I'll look a whole bunch closer for metal next time I salvage some wood.

[Anthony Whitesell]

If I don't get wood straight form the lumber yard, then it does go in the shop without a pass by a metal detector. It hangs right next to the door.

[Matt Meiser]

Depending on what they manufactured, you might want to go over them with a metal detector to look for small bits of embedded metal that will mess up whatever you plan to use to flatten them.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

That's not under the bus it's merely par for the course in your journey into the wonderful land of recycled lumber.

Bullets, nails, screws - you name it. Even in home harvested lumber you'll find that irresponsible (I can't think of enough vulgarisms for them) hunters trespassing on your land will have driven half inch spikes in your trees snapping 'em off and leaving 'em like their candy bar wrappers and other refuse for you to find later. .

Wait till you get some bowling alley material. They nail that stuff together with zillions of nails.

I had a similar experience with my own butcher block furniture that I made some 36 (or so) years ago. It hadn't been assembled or used in years, so I recycled it.

Of course back when I was first assembling it I snapped a 3/8" eye-bolt off inside one of the blocks and being the diligent little SOB that I was, I patched the spot perfectly so you'd never know that I lost a chunk of steel in there.

I ripped it up and re glued it and was making the top of a a tri-pod stand for my dartboard box that I'm also making from this recycled maple.
The top part is a 2x10x7" block with three angled dadoes ( running cross grain) in it to receive the legs.

While running a compound angle dado on that top piece I discovered my long lost chunk of steel.

~~~~~"Gee golly what are those sparks coming from under the work?
Can't be that much silica in the wood to make sparks - - can there? "~~~~~

I turned the finished dado over and lo - like the prodigal son: my memory returned. The dado cutter was none the worse for it. The indexable carbide inserts were un-harmed.

Like the man said. Get yourself a metal detector. The cheaper ones are more sensitive. Get the cheaper one.

[Jim Becker]

Rob, despite the fact that the blade looks good, don't trust it at this point. The carbide might be intact, but it could, in fact, be loose on a tooth or three.

[harry strasil]

Jim, just be happy it wasn't being done by a commercial sawyer and you get a bill for 30 insert teeth or a new band saw blade.

[J. Z. Guest]

Such is the hazard of salvaged or recycled wood; those hidden surprises. You may want to invest in some sort of metal detector for future salvages, hehehe.

The stock blade on my Ridgid TS2400 is also a good one. It's probably the same a 24T rip blade? Carbide is much, much harder than steel rod, so as long as you didn't get carried away with feed rate, (or they did a crappy job brazing them on) it would be surprising for the teeth to let go.

[Lee Schierer]

Here's what you need.


And you can get one for less than the price of sharpening your blade.

[Vince Shriver]

If I don't get wood straight form the lumber yard, then it does go in the shop without a pass by a metal detector. It hangs right next to the door.

I guess this procedure is common, but I haven't heard of it before - excellent information, thanks for posting. Vince

[Rob Luter]

I got a new blade at noon today. The old one won't be used again without a thorough going over by the shop that sharpens saw blades for the company I work for.

[Jason Beam]

I'm stunned the blade made it through 3/8" steel without you noticing it ... That must have been some really soft steel.

[Rob Luter]

It was just mild steel, and I was taking things real slow. The slab I was cutting weighed about 75 pounds too. The owner of the sharpening shop didn't seem too surprised. He and I were remembering when "back in the day" carbide tipped blades were introduced for circular saws. There was a blade called a pirhanna that was promoted as being able to cut through nails without damage.

I was going to have the old one resharpened but the replacement blade I got has me thinking otherwise. It's a commercial grade combination blade with a standard (.125) kerf rather than the thin (.094) kerf the stock one had. It's much stiffer and yields much better results both in cutting speed and in quality of cut. Ripped edges are clean enough for invisible glue lines on about 90% of the glue joints I do. The price is about 1/2 of a Forrest or Freud blade (this guy is a Freud dealer too). It's a blade the local cabinet and furniture shops use. At the price, I can think about investing in a dedicated rip blade if need be.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Hello,

He and I were remembering when "back in the day" carbide tipped blades were introduced for circular saws. There was a blade called a pirhanna that was promoted as being able to cut through nails without damage.

Yes! There was - and I believe B&D still makes the Pirhanna. I bought a 10" one off the closeout rack at WalMart last year for about 8 bucks.
My ancient and gone missing in action 5 1/2" B&D circ saw came with one some 25/26 years ago. I used it to trim the edges of the deck I put in.
And - yes - it did manage to find a nail, which it went through as easily as it went through the cedar decking. Cut it clean in half - lengthwise.