Need tips on table saw blade usage..

[Doozer]

So I recently picked up this Dewalt Combo Sw blade pack from home dep.

I used the 60t blade to cut some plywood for the aquarium stand I just finished. It worked great for cutting the plywood with no tearout...

Im going to start cutting the hard maple and jatoba to make some cutting boards soon, doing both ripping and crosscutting. They are not high end saw blades, but I still want them to last as long as possible. Should I use the 60t blade for ripping, or would it be a better idea to switch to the 32t blade for that?

I have a lousy craftsman table saw (dont get me started on that!) for now, and dont have alot of experience with diffent blades. I love the cut from the 60t but dont want to ruin it already.

thanks!

[DALSAW]

The 32 tooth blade would be better for ripping that maple, as for cross cutting the maple the 60 tooth blade would do just fine.

[dryhter]

Hey doozer,

Ripping produces a different kind of shaving from cross cutting. Usually a rip blade has a large gullet to store the shaving until it expelled from the cut. Cross cutting essentially produces dust, ripping produces fluff like from a planer. Ripping requires more horse power. Neither of the blades appear to have large gullets so you will have to slow down your feed rate which = heat which = burning . Since you don't have the right blade and it sounds like you are having issues with your saw just experiment and see which blade gives the best results.

Dave

[Doozer]

That makes sense because the first time I cut hardwood with this saw (with the original blade) I did get alot of burn marks on the wood... other than a more powerful saw, would there be a better type of blade I can use for cuttng the hardwoods that wont burn so much? Or should I just run it through real slow?

Thanks for the advice.

[Gregory Paolini]

That makes sense because the first time I cut hardwood with this saw (with the original blade) I did get alot of burn marks on the wood... other than a more powerful saw, would there be a better type of blade I can use for cuttng the hardwoods that wont burn so much? Or should I just run it through real slow?

Thanks for the advice.

You may want to look for a dedicated ripping blade, for the purpose of only ripping hardwoods. Most of these 10" blades have about 24 teeth, and the top of the tooth is flat, not angled (if looking at it head on). This will literally chop away the wood, producing the most efficicient rip cut, with minimal burning.

Hope this helps,

Gregory

[DeanJackson]

So I recently picked up this Dewalt Combo Sw blade pack from home dep.

I used the 60t blade to cut some plywood for the aquarium stand I just finished. It worked great for cutting the plywood with no tearout...

Im going to start cutting the hard maple and jatoba to make some cutting boards soon, doing both ripping and crosscutting. They are not high end saw blades, but I still want them to last as long as possible. Should I use the 60t blade for ripping, or would it be a better idea to switch to the 32t blade for that?

I have a lousy craftsman table saw (dont get me started on that!) for now, and dont have alot of experience with diffent blades. I love the cut from the 60t but dont want to ruin it already.

thanks!

You don't want to rip with a 60T blade; the extra teeth will cause the blade to heat up on a rip cut, and will scorch/burn the wood.

You can probably use the 32T to crosscut, but will not get as fine of a finish.

For a 10" saw, a 40T (or so) blade will let you both rip and crosscut, although not as well as if you had dedicated blades.

[tombuhl]

Probably late for this discussion. Hope all is going well on your project. I use my Woodworker II, 40T for both cross-cuts and ripping. But I also have a 32T rip blade for particularly thick or tough stock. It does make a difference as others here have said. Recently added a Woodworker #1 Grind which has flat bottomed cut, good for dadoes and rabbets and such. btw, my rip blade sort of lead me to believe it was flat bottomed. But NO. It is flat, except for an angle at edge of cut (believe it is a Freud blade). So read details closely if you wish to have a flat bottom blade.