What do you guys use for a plywood blade in your circular saw? I bought a plywood blade to cut some birch plywood and it did a terrible job with tearout.
I have a bunch of bookcases to make so I would like to improve the initial cuts.
I've had good luck w/ good quality plywood blades; don't understand there being much of a problem unless it was just an inexpensive one or some other alignment problem.
What _specific_ blade (manufacturer, no teeth, grind, etc., etc., ...)
I'll take the "circular saw" as skilsaw, not contractors; they all are "circular".
What particular saw and are you sure the blade is perpendicular to the shoe plate and are you using a guide or freehanding the cuts? Have you checked the blade is parallel to the edge of the base plate if using the straightedge? If it isn't, it's just like the fence on a tablesaw not being parallel to the blade; it causes the work to run at an angle against the blade which will cause teeth to drag on one edge or the other preferentially depending on which way the bias is.
"Larry C" wrote in news:aIQwm.3826$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrddc01.gnilink.net:
I bought an Irwin Marathon blade at my grandpa's suggestion, and it's yet to come off the circular saw. It's a standard blade (I don't remember the number of teeth for 7 1/4" blades), not a plywood blade, but if you take it easy it cuts through plywood with a minimal amount of tearout. Last plywood I cut with it was sheathing grade 1/2" stuff, though. You may have problems with better quality plywood.
I have an older B&D worm drive. I forget what blade is on it now, carbide tip (probably 40 tooth). For good plywood cuts, I do 2 things... clamp on a guide board and (with the good side down) put a sacrificial board under the cut (for the whole length of the cut.)
Your biggest problem will be with crosscuts, any decent blade should rip well. For crosscuts, you could...
Use a blade with many tiny teeth. Expensive if carbide, cheap if steel and steel works well for a while.
Apply backer to tearout side. Even masking tape helps.
Moisten the wood.
Score the wood on tearout side with a knife. Hard to do with a hand held saw. Scoring can also be done by making a very shallow first cut then cutting through.
Good quality, thin kerf, carbide blade with as many teeth as you can find.
I bought a "plywood" blade from Lowes, found it less than perfect and took it back for a refund. Bought a thin kerf carbide blade and had better results. Also, there is something about which side is "up" that is different (as I recall) when using a "Skill" saw vs a table saw. I believe the god side is to be down with the former.
Google "Cutting Plywood" don't take my word for it! :)
Yes, the cutting teeth edge enter from the bottom for the skilsaw while from the top on a table saw. Hence, there tends to be less tearout when oriented as stated although a quality, sharp blade should leave minimal either way...but as noted much earlier in the thread (before OP departed, in fact :) ) it was noted an alignment of the blade can cause problems if the trailing drag the cut edge on exit they can wreak havoc (as well as can the cutting teeth on exit, particularly that's where dull or poor set or choice of type of blade will cause problems).
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