- Hey, I'm Caleb,
with YouCanMakeThisToo,
and today's video is all
about circular saw blades.
As I'm sure you gathered,
this isn't just about this
kind of circular saw blade
but rather all saws that
use circular blades,
miter saws and table saws too.
Probably not gonna talk
about radial arm saws
because it's not 1985 anymore,
but anyway, first we'll
start with the basics
of blade geometry,
kind of why they're different
for different kinds of cuts
and combo blades,
and then I'll talk
about some of the latest
cutting edge technology in blades.
Sorry, I had to do that one.
And then also wrap up with
some of the differences
between the less expensive
and the more expensive blades,
and some tips to keep
your blades lasting longer
and get your money out of them.
A common question I've been asked
is which saw blade to use for what.
Fortunately, most
manufacturers and retailers
make this super easy right now
because they literally tell
you right on the blade,
so whenever you see the blades,
all you need to know is what
size blade your saw takes.
Go there, find that size,
and look on the blade
for the one that says it cuts
the things you wanna cut.
It's really that easy,
but you're here because you wanna know
a little bit more than that,
like what are the differences?
Why?
What if you've got some old blades
that maybe it's worn off of?
Well, if all the label's
worn off your blade,
it's probably dull and
you need to throw it away
and go buy a new one.
But, let's get into why
blades are the way they are.
So the first thing you'll
probably notice about these
are the size difference,
course, you just pair
whatever size blade you need
to the size blade that your saw takes.
Next is probably color,
these are all red,
but you see these are white,
these are Diablo branded,
whereas these are Freud Industrial,
Diablo is a division of Freud,
this is just more their consumer line,
this is their professional line.
And getting a little more nuanced,
the next thing you'll
notice is the tooth count,
so this is a high tooth count,
a lower tooth count,
and how many teeth are in a blade
is one of the biggest differences
in how it's gonna perform.
These are lower tooth count blades,
this is my ripping blade,
and in a table saw
you normally have a
lower tooth count blade
when you're doing ripping
because of fiber orientation,
we'll get into that later.
But for the framing blades,
they also have low tooth count
because with less teeth,
the blade will take a more aggressive cut
and cut faster.
So you can see this is a framing blade,
so the idea is here this
would be used for pine,
you're not looking for a
really precise, fine cut,
you're just trying to hog
through some material quickly
so you can cut the 1000
two by fours you need to
to build a house or whatever.
And this is their fast framing blade,
which is 18 tooth,
but this is a 5.5,
this is a 6.5 blade,
so if you look,
the amount of teeth around
is actually pretty close.
These teeth are just a little
bit closer than this one,
but as far as how many
cuts it's gonna take,
it's pretty similar.
Okay, that's all cool,
but why does the tooth
count make a difference
depending on which way
you're cutting through wood?
Well, that has to do with the wood grain.
Here's a piece of walnut,
and it's really easy to
see the grain on this,
especially because we have
the little piece of pith,
which was the center of the tree,
or the branch,
whatever this was.
See all the rings growing out
and how those rings kinda
form lines going down.
Now, if we're cutting
down along these lines,
that would be ripping,
and this is a common analogy,
but imagine all these,
this grain, all these little fibers
was a bundle of straws.
What we're trying to do, basically,
is sever these straws from each other,
and this end,
because these are bendy straws,
that actually kinda helps,
so you can see that just
kind of breaking the bond
between the straws or the
fibers is really easy,
so we can move through
that a little quicker.
And also whenever we sever this,
we're gonna have kind
of a long little piece
so we need more space between our teeth,
a larger gullet,
which is achieved when
you have lesser spacing
to accommodate those
slightly larger particles
as we're cutting through.
Contrast that with crosscutting,
we're cutting across the grain, right?
Now our bundle of straws
is running this way,
so we're no longer trying
to separate the straws
from each other,
instead we're trying to
shear through these fibers
and separate little pieces of it.
So we really wanna,
if we want a clean cut,
we need to really nibble
through this nice and slow,
which is where our crosscut
saw's gonna come in.
And because we're going slower
and also getting smaller particles,
because I'm just gonna chip
at a little bit of this,
I'm not gonna be able to
break off a longer piece easy,
I don't need as much clearance
so I can have a smaller gullet.
Also, that's why those different
grind techniques come in
because with the angle
on the ATB kind of grind,
than TCG, the tri-chip grind, and whatnot,
that angle is gonna help
sever through these fibers
to get a cleaner cut
versus that hacking, flat grind
which would be fine for just chipping out
along the length,
but not as good
if you're trying to
sever through the fibers,
not them from each other.
One of the cool things
about moving to the
pro-level table saw blades
is they normally tell you
exactly what kind of grind the blade has
right on the blade,
that's good for resharpening
and also because once
you're at this level,
that matters to you.
I'm gonna go over what some of these mean.
My ripping blade is a flat tooth grind,
which is exactly what you think it is,
it means the top of the blade,
or tooth, is flat,
and that gives you a flat bottom cut
which makes this really
useful not just for ripping
but doing joinery.
So if you're trying to use this
to make rabbits or dados or grooves,
you're gonna have a flat bottomed groove,
which is a really good feature.
My thin kerf crosscut,
I have an ATB,
which is an alternating top bevel,
which is a very common type of grind.
You'll see that on,
that's kind of the standard
grind on most blades,
you see if you have a
framing blade or anything,
it's probably an ATB
and that basically means every
tooth has an angle on the top
and they alternate,
alternating top bevel.
You can really see the difference
between the flat bottom blade
and the crosscut.
So if I needed to make this
wider and make multiple cuts,
this would be flat,
whereas, as you can see,
that would be ridged.
But something you'll notice is this tooth,
like the ripsaw tooth,
is still ground
perpendicular to the blade,
which is how most are ground.
And this is where the difference
between the crosscut and
plywood blades really come in.
This has an axial shear and a high ATB,
so it's still that alternating top bevel
but it's a more severe angle,
a greater bevel than this is.
And that helps give this type of tooth
more of a shearing action,
which results in less tear out
on the thin veneer on plywood
because it helps get that
leading edge of the tooth
out there a little bit farther in the cut
to score the veneer
before the rest of the
tooth comes through,
and that's what minimizes the tear out.
The other thing you'll notice is
instead of the tooth grind
being perpendicular to the blade
as most of them are,
it actually is angled a little bit
and that's what the axial shear is,
which, again, helps get
the leading cutting edge
of that tooth out there
to score the material,
and also helps provide a shearing action
instead of a cutting or tearing action
on the veneer on plywood
because this blade doesn't know
if you're running across
the grain on the veneer
or with the grain on the veneer.
So either way this'll help make sure
that you get the least amount of tear out
on a piece of plywood on
that really thin veneer.
But if this blade is so good
at minimizing tear out, etc,
why have a crosscut blade?
Why not just make this and only use this?
Well, a few reasons.
First, I think this was actually
a little bit more expensive
because it has a more
advanced grind on it.
Also, this grind is a lot more aggressive
and so it's going to dull a
little bit quicker on hardwoods.
This is gonna have a
little bit more durability,
so it's just optimized
for cutting hardwoods.
This will absolutely give
you a really good crosscut,
but there's so much more built into this
that you don't need if you're
just crosscutting hardwoods.
So using this one,
I'm gonna keep my plywood blade
good for plywood and laminates longer
than if I use this
for all crosscutting
and plywood laminates.
There's several surfaces that are ground
and different faces that can
be cut at different angles,
and each of those has a specific name
that they're addressed by,
and then the degree so
you can compare blades.
I'm not gonna get into all the terms,
but one thing I am gonna
talk about is the hook angle,
which is one term that is important.
Fortunately, hook angle's
easy to see and understand.
If I use this rule to just
kind of draw the diameter,
you can see how this tooth
cants forward a little bit.
And this positive angle
makes for a slightly aggressive cut
because the tooth is leaning
in into the cut, basically.
And this is the way most blades are made
for circular saws and table saws.
But that more aggressive cut
is not ideal at a miter saw,
especially a sliding miter saw.
To understand why that's bad
at the sliding miter saw,
close look at the circular saw,
which is the same way a table saw cuts,
is very informative.
Now, on the circular saw,
the blade rotates this way
and the leading cutting edge is here,
and if these teeth are pushing
on the wood in any way,
it's pushing this way against the play.
And you can imagine this upside down,
same way a table saw works,
where the blade pulls it
down against the table
instead of the shoe.
But at the miter saw,
as you know,
the cut often starts in
the middle of the board.
This is why the negative
rake angle is important,
as you can see,
that tooth isn't
aggressively shoved into it.
With this negative rake,
what that helps it do
is the blade provides
downward and rearward force
to help hold the piece in place.
It also means for a slower,
less aggressive cut,
so the saw doesn't get away from you,
and this also helps prevent self-feeding.
With a positive rake angle,
if those teeth were canted forward more,
this blade might have the tendency
to try to dig itself into the wood,
and this blade and motor
are going to overpower you
and it's going to happen
faster than you can react.
So this is much safer.
Of course, with the
circular saw and table saw
we want the opposite,
that's why we have the
positive hook angle.
I have my crosscut blade on top,
you can see how it has a little bit,
and underneath it is my rip blade,
you can see it has a more
aggressive hook angle.
And that is, for just that reason,
get a more aggressive cut,
a faster cut,
it helps pull itself into the wood
and helps hold that board
down against the table
as you're cutting,
or against your saw.
If you're savvy with miter saws,
you know on wider boards,
or really any board if you can,
it's better to do a scoring pass
and cut the top,
and then come through and cut the bottom.
Here's why.
As we can see here,
the leading edge of the cutting
is actually happening down.
The negative rake angle helps that happen
because if that tooth was canted forward,
it would be happening on the back side.
Now, because the cutting
action is happening down,
that's pushing the wood fibers down
instead of lifting them up,
which helps minimize tear out.
So that's what we wanna do on the top,
is get that.
Whereas, if we try to cut
this in one pass like this,
you can see then on the top side,
those teeth will be cutting up
and ripping up those fibers,
and we'll get tear out.
So we'll want to score the top,
come through, and then cut the bottom,
and our tendency sometimes
is to do exactly that
because we think,
okay, enter a cut,
cut out, go down, cut back.
That's actually kinda dangerous.
The negative hook helps prevent
bad things from happening,
but better technique is better.
Because of the blade rotation,
if we're going this way,
we're going with the saw blade,
and that can make the
saw want to run away,
especially if you hit a
knot or something hard,
or metal in the wood.
So it's always better,
you wanna come out here and start,
go through and do your score cut,
then come back again
and do your score cut.
And there you go,
if you didn't know that,
you're welcome, because you're
gonna get much better cuts
with less tear out.
Just remember, score cut,
come through, then final cut.
And not only is that gonna
give you better cuts,
it's also safer if you start
at the front of the board
and work your way back both times.
I'm no genius here,
this is actually in the operator's manual
and it tells you all those things,
but like me,
you probably threw it
away before you read it.
And latest developments,
new cutting edge tech,
sorry for the bad puns,
most blades, regular wood blades,
they don't recommend it and
I don't really advise it,
can cut through aluminum and soft metals,
okay, non-ferrous metals,
it's not great for it but they can.
But you really want to avoid
steel or anything hardened,
it's just not gonna do it.
But Diablo has some proprietary material,
it's I think for the Steel Demon
it's like a ceramic,
carbide blend or something.
But this blade goes into regular
wood cutting circular saw,
and you can cut stainless steel, steel.
I bought this when I did the
kitchen island about a year ago
and cut a bunch of steel angle iron.
It's pretty wild.
So if you don't wanna invest in metal saws
but you wanna cut metal
with your woodworking tools,
these kind of blades will do it,
just make sure the RPM on your saw
and the RPM is lower than
the max RPM on your blade.
And with the Steel Demon tech,
they put some of that in
some different blades,
these are wood and metal blades
which are amazing for demolition.
And the idea is it's optimized
for cutting not just metal,
because you want a different
tooth geometry for just metal,
these do okay in wood,
but they'll also chug through
any nails or metal debris
that's in wood
and you don't have to worry
about your carbide exploding
and ending up in your body or anything,
which is amazing.
And it's not like a slow, painful,
if you've ever accidentally
hit a nail with a circular saw,
you're like, "Oh man, I hit it."
And then it's that moment
of do a power through or stop, whatever.
This, you don't even
notice there's a nail,
it's pretty crazy.
Now I'm talking about the less expensive
versus the more expensive
versions of blades
and what you get.
Now, I like Freud and Diablo
because they tend to have good features,
and that's not because Home
Depot is sponsoring this
and has sent me some.
You've seen 10 different
Freud Diablo blades,
they gave me three,
the other seven,
and I have more in my drawers,
I've paid for,
so it's just what I like.
And unfortunately I don't have any
of the Diablo branded table saw blades,
but this pretty well holds true.
These are all laser cut,
which is more precise than stamped blades,
but you can see there isn't
a whole lot of laser cutting.
Once you step up,
you have more laser cutting,
and what that is is it just
helps minimize vibrations,
so the amount of the design
that goes into the more
expensive blades is more,
but the main difference is
the size of the carbide.
Now, circular saw to table
saw isn't apples to apples,
but you'll notice the circular saw blades
have really small carbide pieces,
but these Freud Industrial have
much larger carbide pieces.
And you can compare them in the store
from the expensive to less expensive,
and you'll notice the same thing.
The more expensive have
much larger carbide,
and the reason for that
is to allow resharpening,
so that way
when you drop $70, $80,
$100, $100 plus on a blade,
you're not doing that every time.
Then what you do is pay $10 to $15
and get that blade resharpened
and get several uses out of it.
Whereas the $20 to $30
table saw blades you see
are more of,
not necessarily one time use
but single use
in the sense of once that blade's dull,
there's just not enough carbide there
to be resharpened and maintain
all the proper angles,
so you chuck that one and buy a new blade.
A great tip that I haven't
done great keeping up on
to keep your blades cutting well,
if they're not quite cutting right
but you don't think
they should be dull yet,
or even if they seem a little dull,
a lot of times
cleaning will actually get
the performance back up.
I actually have this little cleaning kit
that works really well,
but a 10 inch blade will fit
inside of a five gallon bucket
so you can use that.
But if you don't have a good space,
there's another cool
trick for cleaning blades.
Just use a fluffy towel
or some moving blankets and a trash bag
would be a lot better,
these aren't quite big enough,
I had to double over.
But that'll give you a little indention
where whatever you're
using to clean will work,
and vinegar's okay,
Simple Green, even dish detergent.
Something mild because
you don't want anything
that's going to strip the coating off,
and if you do use vinegar or something,
just don't let them soak
more than a few minutes
because you can start to eat away
whatever coatings might be on your blade.
Yeah, then a soft brush,
get all that gum and debris off,
and your blades will start
cutting a lot better.
Personally, I prefer
dedicated specialty blades
over combination blades
or multipurpose blades,
but it's totally fine.
Normally for a table
saw and a 10 inch blade
you're looking at like a
40 tooth combination blade,
and the idea is those are
designed to strike a balance
between ripping okay
and crosscutting okay,
and some of them
people say they have
really good results with.
Personally, I think it
takes like 10 seconds
to change a saw blade,
and normally I'm batching my work
so I don't normally go
rip, cross, rip, cross.
It's a bunch of ripping then
a bunch of crosscutting,
or then plywood,
so I have no problem just
setting a blade in that I need
and changing it when
it's time to change it
to get the best performance
at each of those tasks.
If you would rather go combination blade,
that's totally cool.
You do you.
Another question I get sometimes
which kinda goes with the,
"Hey, what tools should I buy?"
Is, "which blades should I buy?"
Like I said,
I like specialty blades
so buy the blade for
whatever task you have.
Don't go and just stock up on blades
because I might need that someday,
just wait till you do
need it and get it then.
And as far as what I leave in my saw,
it's really based on your shop
and what you work with the most.
My table saw is where I do
most of my finish cuts and ripping,
so I normally either have
my plywood blade in there
or my ripping blade.
I got my crosscut blade before
I got a miter saw set up,
so I did my crosscutting at the table saw,
and now I do all my
crosscutting at the miter saw,
and I have a fine tooth,
72 tooth crosscut blade in my
miter saw that stays there.
In my circular saw,
I normally have my plywood blade
because most of the times
I use my circular saw
to break down plywood,
large sheets, until I
take it to the table saw.
If I'm breaking down dimensional goods,
I normally use my jigsaw for that,
but occasionally I'll
throw a framing blade
or the Steel Demon or the
wood and metal blade in here
if that's what I need for a certain task.
Hope you enjoyed this or
at least learned something,
here's a link to some videos
that you might find interesting.
If you liked this one,
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And until next time,
make time to make something.
