Swingman wrote in news:1918116651411466633.755997kac- nospam.com@216.196.97.131:
The cut quality is every bit as good as the Forrest WWII at about 80% of the price. I bought one of these at the Woodworking Show about four years ago, and was very impressed. I'll never go back to Forrest blades -- especially after having had an absolutely miserable experience with their service. IMO Forrest is overrated, with respect to the quality of both their products and their service.
Bill wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news1.newsguy.com:
That's another reason I like the Ridge Carbide blade: it *is* easy to burn cherry with a WWII, but not quite so easy with the RC blade.
Faster, anyway, yes.
IMO that depends on how much plywood you cut. I haven't found it necessary.
I use a portable circular saw for rough-cutting plywood, not my table saw. Of course, that's due partly to my shop being in my basement -- with yours being in your garage, it's obviously much easier for you to cut plywood on your table saw than it would be for me.
Leather apron if it does helps, but if you pay attention to the saw you will minimize that problem. One of the reasons my father quit using his wood working machines was his hearing, he could no longer hear well enough. Listening to the machine is an important part of safety.
Bill just so you know you will do "something stupid" or something will just happen, you are doing your best to minimize that risk. Go out and have fun making something, if nothing else make some smaller boards.
The experience will help you learn abot your saw.
Mark
Woodcraft (in Indianapolis) has 15% off everything this weekend, so that would put their WW-II at $115. If I don't do any better at the show, I may pick one up on the way home.
Doug, get back with me if you have any interest in attending Marc Adams'
3-hour Router Presentation on Friday. I could be talked into going.
How does it hold up after sharpening?
My criteria for what I do, besides a top notch cut, is longevity between sharpening and number of sharpening cycles. Forrest has excelled in those categories for me for years. AAMOF, I have a WW II still in use after 10+ years that cuts like new.
Don't doubt you have a good blade, but it would take evidence of that kind of track record to get me to change. :)
Regardless of the blade, maple and cherry are very easy to burn if you do not feed the work fast enough. Even on top of that if the wood has the slightest amount of bow, read that as absolutely not dead ass flat, any blade has the potential to burn maple or cherry. Assuming you don't feed the work an an unusually slow rate any burn/scorch can be removed with a few light passes of a cabinet scraper and or 180 grit sand paper. IMHO not a factor for which blade to use.
People that talk about blades that dull when cutting plywood and materials that are not "all wood" are using marginal blades to start with.
The WWII is not going to dull quickly regardless if you are cutting plywood or solid wood. Buy the best to start with and you will not have to worry about the blade giving poor results and or dulling prematurely. If you are having worries with a blade that dulls quickly, that blade was a waste of money to begin with IMHO.
All probably good blades. I have bought a lot of good blades through the years, going back to the early 80's, In 1999 I finally switched to the Forrest WWII 40 tooth Regular kerf blade, For all cutting I have used nothing else, I do probably more woodworking than most that post here so my blades see a lot of work compared to most. Probably at the most I send the blade back to Forrest every 2-3 years to be brought back to factory spec's.
FWIW I do not give the Forrest blades much thought, I don't long for something better as I am never disappointed in the smoothness or quality of the cut. Additionally I don't baby the blades or save them for special projects, they are tough and stay sharp for a very long time even when cutting through the occasional finishing nail.
I use this particular blade for "all" off my cuts regardless of the type of cut I am making. The only exception to this is when I have my Forrest Dado King mounted or my 15 year old WWII that I had reground to a flat cut for cutting flat bottom groves
Many swear by switching out to use a dedicated rip blade, I used to do that but really don't see the advantage over the Forrest WWII unless I plan to rip a bunch of wood that is over 2" thick. I will say that Forrest now offers a rip blade, the first ever IIRC.. I don't know if it is better for ripping or simply to satisfy the customers desires.
Anyway to sum this all up, you will most likely be money ahead if you simply start off with a Forrest WWII 40 tooth regular kerf blade and not worry about babying it for any cutting shy of cutting through a bunch of nails and or cutting material that may have a bunch of grit embedded in it. Read that as be particular with where the wood comes from, don't cut wood that the neighbor brings over that has been used out in the street as a skate board ramp.
I use my WWII for cutting plywood, even the $120 a sheet stuff. I will share a hint though when cross cutting plywood. I first make a shallow scoring cut on the bottom of the plywood and then rise the blade and run the work through again. The result is no tear out using a WWII blade.
I suspect that most are on a budget and don't need the longevity that the Forrest affords you. Most any new blade will cut well, the test is how well does that blade cut after 18 months of weekly and daily use.
You really don't want to use a thin kerf blade. Thin kerf blades are marginal problem solvers for saws that are WAY underpowered. The can cause less than flat cuts in particular when cutting angles and or compound angles. FWIW I was talked into buying a good quality Regular kerf Systematic combination blade to use on my "1" hp craftsman TS. That blade cut better than any thin kerf blade that I had previously used.
Again, I don't think I would practice on anything other than a Forrest. Lessor blades are going to yield lessor results.
Bill, certain woods burn. So yes you need to move faster, or you need less teeth when ripping so you can move faster. This is normal period. I have many blades. _WWII is my goto blade for good cutting. _
When I need to rough rip a alot of wood, I go to a 24T blade I have. When I need to work on wood that is questionable, I have a variety of blades I will use..
I cut ply with the WWII it will do it well. I don't cut OSB with a WWII, I use a crappy Delta blade, or a craftsman blade..
Just get a good blade to start, you don't need the WWII yet. Get it when you have made all your mistakes and learned about feed speed.
There is nothing wrong with many of the lower blades, they will be more rough, and splinter more. But some of them will be better than others. The Freuds are better than many others, but the thin kerf is not needed or desirable on your saw.
One of my Forrest blades is 15 years old and has probably been resharpened
5 times by Forrest, still cuts like the newer ones.
How do you know that about the WWII, do you have a different # of teeth? I have a RC dado set. I would not recommend it to anyone. Size wise it had too many issues.
I have had the opposite experience with Forrest. Excellent service. I also had good service from RC, they had to regrind my Dado set because the sizes were so far off. a 1/4 dado was 3/32 over. The points were so much higher than the flat area. When they ground it down, they had to grind the metal plate to get the sizes close.. Not what I would expect.
Forrest was great about everything. I went to their shop, just to check them out.. This is old world methodologies here, most everything is hand checked to the max. There are machines, but people are the key. These are machinists.. And they do good work.
WWII does not dull easily, it's C4 and I had used mine for years before needing a sharpening.
Good recommendations. A heavy apron will go a long way in protecting any body part that it is protecting in the event of something being thrown back.
One more thing to add concerning burning. There are a lot of schools of though concerning blade height.
The lower the blade the less exposure you have to it when cutting wood. BUT the higher it is the less likely of any burning/scorching assuming the saw is set up correctly. I prefer to have the bottoms of the carbide teeth to clear the top of the board by about 1/8"
Exactly, I go further then Leon, as I want the gullets clear of the wood, so the tips get cooled off. Also even higher is a big advantage as the wood now gets cut down toward the table; when it is low it gets cut toward you.
When you have a lot of ripping to do, raising the blade as high as possible will speed the ripping as you can push through much faster with less resistance and generally cleaner cuts as the blade is only cutting down.
Must be nice living that close to Forrest.
I once sent my Forrest to the sharpening service that I had used back in the 80's and most of the 90's, A couple weeks later I sent it out again to Forrest to be brought back to factory specs. Sooooo I was with out for a couple of weeks more waiting on the trip to and from NJ.
Since I have gotten another Forrest to swap out while one goes out for its Spa treatment. ;~)
Got still another Forrest, thank you Swingman, when we teamed up on a job together 3 years ago.
When I send the blades to Forrest I add the note to bring back to Factory Spec's. If the estimate will be more than $40 call for authorization.
Nothing special, where I live, everything is at least an hour away.
I want to get another, I have a thin kerf, and will switch to a regular kerf next time, as you say I have problems when tapering legs, I now start at the bottom of the leg so I am cutting against the grain (so to say). And when leaning the blade over I have some issues. When I put a 1/8 kerf blade on I don't have the same issues.
But for my Delta contractor saw, the thin kerf has served me well.
Swingman wrote in news:751993342411487114.398076kac- nospam.com@216.196.97.131:
Don't know -- it hasn't needed sharpening yet. :-)
woodchucker wrote in news:b7Sdndxe9OseNUvPnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@ptd.net:
I have one of those also. I prefer the RC blade.
That surprises me. The reason I bought the RC blade is because I was so happy with the performance of the RC dado set I had bought a few years previously.
Jeff was just concerned that I might accidentally "burn up the blade" during my "learning-phase" and that it would be an expensive lesson...
Same in Houston. LOL
How about that. ;~)
I was building decent furniture with my old Craftsman 1 hp and the good quality regular kerf worked quite well for me.
My blade sharpening guy talked me into a reg kerf combo Systematic blade that he sold in his store knowing about my underpowered saw.
I was skeptical so he let me use it for 10 days with out having to worry about being stuck with it if I were not pleased.
I was very pleased and really somewhat shocked at how much better it was over any thing I had ever used.
When I upgraded in 1999 to the Jet cabinet saw it only saw Forrest blades, same with my new SawStop.
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