Thread: Saw blades again and an ugly incident

Originally Posted by barri

"Quite satisfactorily"?? Does that mean really good? Do you get a smooth cut? Long lasting?

With my linear laminations and built up work I am aiming for a good surface suitable for glue up straight off the saw for most of the cuts. So far I have been able to achieve that goal with very good tight glue joints using a range of both CMT and Freud / Diablo blades. Some timbers are thicknessed before glue up to maintain precision. I definitely do not sand components to size. Have a look at my posts for laminated goblets, celtic knot pens, linear laminated bowls etc.

Smooth cut in both rip and cross cut applications with different blades of course. The thin kerf Diablo blades will produce a very fine ripple in the cut surface (cross cut) in some species.

Long lasting? Not sure as I don't cut large volumes of wood but I do cut a wide range of timber species and the blades have kept their edge well on Jarrah, Marri, Gidgee, Burdekin Plum, Silver Ash, Red Gum, QLD walnut, various wattles, rose gum, WA sheoak and a wide range of WA species etc.

When Carbatec stocked a wide range of CMT blades I used to keep an eye out for specials, most of my blades have been purchased on specials discounts when they come up.

CMT Ultra ITK Fine Finish Blade - 250mm x 80 Teeth is the blade that I use the most - $129 at Carbatec.

Thanks Moby for that. At this stage I'm thinking of staying with what I know and like, that is the freud P410T, and trying a CMT ITK P10050 or CMT 256.050.10. Don't know which is better but the CMT 10050 is only $36 USD extra. Dirt cheap for a well respected brand. Ordering 2 blades does save on delivery charges from Amazon. I know the purists are saying get a separate crosscut blade and rip blade but my experience with the Freud blade has shown me joint quality cuts on both types. I'm also a set and forget type guy. So TK combo blades (40 to 50T) will always be my first choice.

I'm still open to suggestions.

Just a follow on from my ruined blade. The sharpener rep. and the salesperson in the tool shop had a look at the blade and said it was my fault and I didn't put the blade in correctly. I've only done that a few hundred times. Are you kidding me!!!!!. They asked if I rotated the blade after installation to see if it rotated smoothly. Can you believe it!!!!! I rang around a few saw sharpening services and they said it was certainly not my fault. The damage looked like it was hit with a sharp object and bent due to heat probably from the sharpening machine. It is a bitter pill to swallow. It would have been nice to received some good will, like, "we'll go halves in a new blade" or we'll give you a $50 store credit" but that doesn't happen very often. So they have definitely lost a customer.

Anyway I did order the Freud P410T and CMT 256.050.10 from Amazon. I might do a side by side review when they arrive, straight out of the box. I'm hoping the CMT is just as good as its a lot cheaper. Also, I think I've found a good well priced sharpening service in my ringing around.

Can you provide the name of the shop? Doesn't sound like the sort of place I'd want to give my business to.

I'd rather not but you can see where I'm from.

Good decision

Originally Posted by barri

Just a follow on from my ruined blade. The sharpener rep. and the salesperson in the tool shop had a look at the blade and said it was my fault and I didn't put the blade in correctly. I've only done that a few hundred times. Are you kidding me!!!!!. They asked if I rotated the blade after installation to see if it rotated smoothly. Can you believe it!!!!! I rang around a few saw sharpening services and they said it was certainly not my fault. The damage looked like it was hit with a sharp object and bent due to heat probably from the sharpening machine. It is a bitter pill to swallow. It would have been nice to received some good will, like, "we'll go halves in a new blade" or we'll give you a $50 store credit" but that doesn't happen very often. So they have definitely lost a customer.
.

id liked see a picture of the damage. And I'll tell ya it's because it doesn't sound like a gulleter problem to me, I can't think how I could bend a tooth on a gulleter because that's not how they work.

Its still with them and I can't pick it up until Monday. BTW this blade doesn't have gullets. It has expansion slots. It is bent on one of those slots. John, I really don't want this to prolong. I'm certain its their fault. I've already "washed my hands" of this business and I'll let them know in no uncertain terms when I pick up the blade on Monday. I'll cut my losses and move on. Looking forward to the blades arriving from. Amazon

How can you have a blade without gullets? There'd be nowhere for the chip to go

I mean the large cut out sections after every 5th tooth.

Righto then...

The gullets are the slots in the sawplate the teeth are braised into.
A gulleter is the grinding device used to sharpen them. The sawplate mounts on a spindle to center it and the grinder angles are preset to the task, then it drops into each gullet and the grinding wheel contacts the face of the tooth - like a giant high precision version of an electric chainsaw chain sharpener.

My experience is that a couple of things can go wrong there. Angles are preset wrong, or sometimes if the machine has done a lot of work/ not been tightened up properly it might shift and you get an angle change over the face of the blade. or it drops in and grinds a gullet deeper or something. Stuff like that.

What it doesnt do is work in a way that its going to bend the sawplate. A bent sawplate or bent teeth is most likely caused by four things: firstly it could be a misalignment problem on mounting as the sawshop guys think, but you'd know that because theres going to be a gouge in the table where the saw hit it. You'd notice that for sure, and as you say you've done this before and I'd call that least likely. Next option is that if you've used a piece of wood jammed into the teeth to hold the saw for tightening there may have been a soft spot in the sawplate and its bent like that. Metal fatigue or similar. Again, unlikely... its a little bitty saw that gets sharpened until the teeth are gone then thrown out, not a 60"sawmill blade that gets fatigued over years of use through multiple retippings, big forces, and high heat. Thirdly, maybe you got unlucky and cleaned up a lump of metal first cut. Again unlikely, when a saw hits something big enough to bend sawplate you'd know it.

That leaves transit damage. Somewhere between leaving the sharpening place and returning to the place you picked it up from it its been dropped and landed badly... or maybe caught between two pallets, or a forklift tyne hit it, or something like that.

Or maybe something else altogether, without photos its hard to say. Weird stuff happens in transit... I've had saws return home with the teeth all chipped up one side from sitting on a truck floor vibrating away in their sleeves. Tungsten carbide is hard, but its also very brittle and chips very easily.

The one thing I can say for sure is the other sharpening service guys you spoke to over the phone who told you it was a sawshop error without looking at the damaged saw.... them I personally would avoid like the plague. I dont care how good you are, or how long you been doing it for: No-one can fault diagnose a sawblade without seeing it in front of them, and anyone who says they can is full of...

A good logical post John. Yes it could have been done in transit but more unlikely as it went both ways in a car. OK I'm 100% sure it didn't happen in my workshop. It got sharpened, I picked up the well packaged saw from the shop, drove for 5 minutes with it on the passenger seat and I put it on a flat shelf still in its packaging with nothing on top of it where it remained until I went to use it. To the credit of the saw sharpeners (I thought they were very thorough and logical) they also mentioned transit and how it was treated and handled and also mentioned that I would certainly know if damage was done the instant I turned on the saw. When I first turned on the saw there was no jolt or bang. It sounded like when you are raising the blade through a zero clearance insert the first time and its cutting that plastic type material. That's what it was doing as the blade was not aligned it was hitting the ZCI. Not enough to cause the damage that it had.

We can speculate about this forever and I really don't care how it happened. I left a product in their care and it came back damaged. I'm just p..d off that I got treated like an idiot, they took no responsibility and provided no good will gestures that I would have done in the reverse situation.

The clip lower RH in the images may help, show setting up to sharpen a circular saw blade - CIRCULAR SAW SHARPENING MACHINE SSG 600-A DC | Kaindl Grinding Technology Reiling GmbH

Saw blade terminology - Saw Blade Terminology | Central Saws

A follow on.... I "pleasantly" advised the business I won't be coming back. Anyway the blades from amazon arrived. I tried the CMT 50T thin kerf combination blade on some jarrah. Crosscuts and rips were very good and smooth but the Freud fusion thin kerf blade is still my clear number one, that's why I was so angry that the older one was ruined. The crosscuts and rips are near perfect. Glass like finishes. I would describe the cuts as joint quality without sanding. I've also found a good sharpener so I'll be sharpening the freud's until they die and then I'll buy some more. I would certainly advise that anyone with a hybrid or contractor saw (or even those that don't) to try these blades