Thread: Blades

Cannot comment on Irwin TS blade quality as I've never used one. The Irwin TS blades appear to be grouped on the following pages, not sure if it covers all Irwin TS blades as them may differ from country to country:

http://www.irwin.com/tools/circular-...ble-saw-blades

Personally I use a Freud combo blade which I find excellent but a little slow at ripping (no surprise):

Freud Tools - Premier Fusion<br />&nbsp;

$4$ the "equivalent" looking Irwin appears cheaper than the Freud.

Thanks for the reply and the pointers.

I actually have an Irwin blade, but it came 2ndhand with the TS. It has visible runout (which scared the becracky out of me, because I thought it might be the saw!) but because it's not a new blade, I can't tell if it's something that has been done to it.

The Irwins are cheaper, but seem to be sold by "serious" shops, often alongside the Freuds, so I was just wondering.

Nick,

From what you've said and if I was in a similar situation I'd probably purchase a new blade. The old blade may be salvageable but you might find it less frustrating if you just start from scratch.

If the runout continues with the new blade then you could start looking to see if the TS needs adjusting.

Gareth

Hi Gareth. Thanks for coming back. Maybe I used the wrong term. By runout I meant warpage of the blade.

The saw is fine as I have another blade to try it and that is measured dead true with a dial gauge...well true enough...a couple of thou.

There is no cutting problem after I tuned the saw/arbour/fence...just need to get the blade sharpened. TCT though it is, it has apparently seen a lot of melamine and gluey old chipboard.

FWIW I have never seen an Irwin blade with decent (if any) laser cuts in the body of the blade to aid in heat expansion and harmonic resonances. I had an Irwin blade in my TS for all of about 2 hours (needed a blade asap on a Sunday, so off to Bunnies I went) and I was rather un-impressed with it compared to my Freud and CMT blades. The Irwin blade now resides in my scms used almost exclusively docking to approximate size.

FWIW? That is worth a LOT. Direct comparison. Can't ask for more! Thanks.

I was wondering about CMT. I am a bit rusty in all of this, except the bits I am totally new at . IIRC they had a good rep, but are $$.

OOI, I do not want to start a war, but why is the SCMS only for rough cuts, for you. I have one and have done some stunning mitres with it. I paid quite a bit for it, but if you have ideas then I am happy to listen rather than waste time and wood on frustration.

Simple answer for that one...

My scms is a Ryobi

ah! Fight avoided

Funny thing is I bought a TS that was carp. The whole arbour//trunion was somehow not good. The saw was a Bevel (joke) brand. I could set it up at any angle and have it fail at any other.

So I spent a heap on a SCMS, Bosch, 300mm. Beautiful.

So I wonder if our ways of doing things are led by the carp we test it on.....we all try to economise, then regret the result.

I KNOW this will start a fight, but it's not helped by "buy well buy once" extremism. We can't all buy the best, or justify that. That can be self-defeating either way....I go into WW and get disappointed by cheap carp........I go into WW and I simply give up: why would I pay that much?.