Anybody use CMT saw blades a lot. Love em, hate em?
Woodline USA, which is right down the road from me, has started carrying them and has good prices. They seem to run a good amount below the equivalent Freud and Forrest models.
I'm going to pick up an 8" 24-tooth CMT dado set later today. May use it over the weekend (have to cut an insert for the saw first). If I do, I'll post my impressions.
I see them in lots of commercial shops. I used them a few times and never noticed any downside. I did see them go through a few sharpening cycles and they still cut fine for me when I grabbed one.
Fully realising I am about to commit heresy of the first order, I am going to charge ahead anyway :-)
I use a blade from Harbor Freight, that costs under $20 and I have seen it on sale. Its their 50 tooth C3 blade. The cross cuts are very smooth and the rips are also good.
Considering the cost, its almost as cheap to get a new blade as have it sharpened.
I know, I know. But for 20 bucks, it could at least be your green wood and treated wood blade.
Deb
-MIKE- wrote:
Earlier in the summer I picked up three CMT blades (brand new in original package) at a yard sale. I paid $10 each. About 10 days ago I pulled my Forrest WW2 off to send it back for resharpening and stuck a 50T combo ATBR CMT model 215.050.10 on in its place.
It is a piece of shit.
Solid pine, oak, poplar crosscuts are all hairy. Poplar and pine rips are very fuzzy. There is heavy chipping to 3/8 inch on the bottom side of 1/2 inch Baltic Birch and plenty of fuzz where there is no chipping. The BB has to be scored first, then cut to reduce the tearout, and there is still some chipout and fuzz.
I don't have a ZCI on the saw, but never needed it with the WW2. I played with the CMT blade for about an hour then said screw it since I was partway through a project and put the WW2 back on. It's still dull, but even so it cuts much better than the CMT blade using the same solid wood and BB ply used to test the CMT. The Freud Diablo blades ($30 at the Borg) are much better than this CMT blade.
The other two CMT blades I have are 251.042.10 "General Purpose" blade and
210.080.10 "Melamine and Fine Cut Off" blade. I have not used either of these yet, but have the sneaking suspicion a fool and his money have been parted when it comes to CMT saw blades.If I complete the work in progress while weekend warrioring the next few days I will try to drop these other two blades into the TS and see if the other one is just a bad blade or if the whole line is a POS. This is my first experience with a CMT saw blade and you can tell I'm underwhelmed. Probably ok for cutting up PT crap and boards with staples, sand and grit embedded.
To the OP: Just go buy yourself a Forrest WW2. Buy the best and only cry (whine, bitch and moan) once. I may just take a leaf out of Leon's book and buy a second WW2 to be my backup blade while the other one is being sharpened. I've wasted more than the price of a WW2 buying other cheaper blades over the years, and they have just about all been disappointments. I'd have been money ahead to just buy two of them years ago.
Regards, Roy
Thank you for that very helpful and insightful information didn't address my question in the slightest bit.
Thanks. Good advice.
LOL, Now let me talk you into maybe getting a 3rd. ;~) I now have 3, "thanks you Swingman". I sent my oldest back to Forrest and had a flat grind added to the resharpening process. I do a lot of groves and stub tennon joints when making paneled cabinet doors, the flat grind makes a great flat bottom cut.
In spite of that little circumstance, I still owe you, Bubba! ....
Hockey puck! There was more to it than just that blade.
I hope it's better than my 8" Freud Dado set I bought earlier this year. I hate that sucker.
I bought a set and it worked great... perfectly flat bottoms.... for a while. Now the bottoms are stair stepped. I emailed the company... no reply.
Flat then not? Any broken teeth or arbor hole that is no longer 5/8"
OR could the blade be thin enough to be falling down in the thread of the arbor?
Yeah, did a big amount of vibration show up at the same time it went to stairsteps?
-- Good ideas alter the power balance in relationships, that is why good ideas are always initially resisted. Good ideas come with a heavy burden. Which is why so few people have them. So few people can handle it. -- Hugh Macleod
No broken teeth. I can't imagine the hole growing. :-)
Arbor is plenty long enough to have blades sitting on un-threaded portion, I believe. In either case, the blades are pretty thick and would sit across several threads.
Nope.
Sounds like the hole on one, or more, of the chippers is no longer concentric. Doesn't take much wear to do that, and considering the quality, or lack thereof, of steel products these days ...
Mine never was "perfectly" flat, but neither was my old set. There are other things I don't like about them. My old 40 year old 7" set, which was not carbide was easier to set up, and cut just as well. I should of bought the 6" set of Olson or got my old set sharpened again. My Freud set is the "cheap" $100 set, not the expensive set. It was however my first, and last, Freud purchase.
I have a Freud set that I now use for dimensional lumber and MDF. It's OK, but certainly not perfect. I recently bought the Forrest 8" set. Yes, there is a difference. ;-)
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