Makita Jigsaw Blades

[The Medway Handyman]

Hi All

My new Makita jigsaw came with a variety of blades and I also just bought some L-10 which are 155mm long for a job later this week. They came with yet more Makita blades.

I'm trying to make sense of what does what. Found Lawsons site, which was some help & copied a table into an Excel spreadsheet involving much deleting etc.

Length, material, no of teeth all make sense.

What puzzles me is that they have blades in Type A, B, C & D. This seems to refer to the set and grinding angle of the teeth.

Anyone know what the code letters mean?

[Andy Dingley]

Hmmm.... Why do Bosch make a jigsaw that's supposed to have a135mm capacity, but you have to buy Makita blades to get ones long enough to use it?

I don't know Lawsons', but aren't their Bosch part numbers all a few years old?

IMHO, go with Bosch blades for indoor work. Their taper ground blades give a better finish than Makita blades. The "swiss army knife" tooth shape (each tooth is prominently triangular in plan, not chisel shaped) of the T301 seris blades gives a particularly good finish on typical man-made woodish boards in kitchens. They're as good as a reverse-cut blade, but easier to control.

For outdoor stuff and carpentry, Makita have better tooth profiles for aggressive cuts, particularly for fast cuts in softwood. Bosch don't make a 4mm pitch blade with anything like enough gullet space to clear softwood chips, so use the Makita B12 instead. The Bosch Progressors are particularly bad here -- the big 4mm pitch one (T345) is equally useless at everything

Supposedly the Makita hollow ground gives less kerf friction than a taper grind, but the numbers just don't add up for a blade this narrow. Snake oil, IMHO.

The Bosch "cheap and cheerful" yellow set-rather-than-ground blades (T111 and T119) series aren't much good for anything, and they steer badly. Best avoided - decent ones don't cost that much more.

If you want to understand tooth profiles, read something on bandsaws - like Duginske's book.