On Jul 4, 11:05*am, "Michael Koblic" wrote:
wrote in message

...

On Jul 2, 5:29 pm, Bob Engelhardt wrote:

[...]

Most of the plain non-carbide circular saw blades are disposable items
for Skilsaws, carbide has pretty much taken over most of the rest of
the market. *Used to get Sandvik Skilsaw blades by the dozen, were
cheap enough that if I hit a nail, I didn't feel too poor in the
pocket to put a new on. *Made for demolition and renovation. *And I
didn't really care what the steel was, just that the blade was cheap
and good enough for the purpose. *Don't need $100 blades for whacking
rotten 2x4s.

OTOH you can get burned. My Bosch 10x60 blade that came with the miter saw
needed sharpening so I thought I would buy a spare while I waited for the
Bosch to come back from the shop. I got one on line for about $35 (it came
with a 1/4" spiral router bit). Form the beginning it gave me trouble: It
was burning wood (yeah, rotten 2x4s) and twice it grabbed a small piece and
flung it into the wall. I had the blade looked at by the guy who did the
sharpening. He showed me all sorts of things on the blade such as the poor
way the initial sharpening was done, poor brazing of the carbide to the
blade and some other features which he could only explain if the blade was
run backwards to cut aluminum (it was not, certainly not in my possession).

I took it home and re-checked the mounting: Nothing wrong there. I
re-inserted the Bosch, now sharpened. I replicated the cuts which gave the
other blade trouble: The Bosch went through the material like through
butter.

Considering that the sharpening guy described the Bosch as a "throwaway
blade" (a blade given away with the machine, not expected to survive long)
what does it say about the new blade? The outcome is that I will never use
it again and when the time comes I will buy myself a nice $80 Freud. It just
not worth the hassle, damaged projects and the risk of injury.

--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC

BTW this is a second attempt to post. Apologies if the original pops up
somewhere along the line as well.

I have been going through a similar process on getting a new blade
(10inch) for my table saw, which is of dubious quality since it was
cheap and came from (insert name here). Got a book out of the library
on the subject, had a whole chapter devoted to blades. Fascinating,
but useless cause I am not a Fine Woodworker (BTW - I got and old
skilsaw, great for ripping up floorboards - few carbide tips missing,
doesn't seem to worry it too much)

In the end, his recommendation was to get 3 blades, as there's no such
thing as a good GP blade. And a good guide is price - reasonable
starts at $50, holy grail type ones can be hundreds of dollars (you
know, the "hand crafted by Elves in the forest" sorta thing)

My cousin in Tasmania is a real craftsman, now in his eighties, still
fells his own firewood with the chainsaw (2 of em, actually) and gets
it home in his Landcruiser truck. He has grown the wood he now makes
furniture with. He goes into bogs, drags out hulks of old wood of rare
species, takes it home, mills it, air drys it for - however long it
takes. If you are fortunate to be given one of his pieces, you are
blessed - its an instant family heirloom, its that good. When he
sharpens a hand plane (or even an axe) he doesnt think its good enough
till you can read print through the smallest shaving...

He has about 40 blades for his saw - all different types of wood,
ripping/crosscutting, and lots of other things I dont know.

So I bought a $50 Erwin, carbide tipped, and as it aint in front of
me, cant remember the tpi. And I set up the table-saw - plan to bolt
struts across the back, increase rigidity and improve accuracy. Use a
dial indicator, check run-out. Use a square, check alignment. Check
the guides track, remove the slop in the miter gauge cutting
thingy....

In short, its the same learning curve as metalwork, the level from
using cheap carbide tooling on your not aligned Chinese 9 by 20 to the
level of having a precision instrument sharpening your own bits and
you and the machine singing in harmony........(I wish)

Wonderful word in the English language Shibboleth(sp- Ed can correct)
and it means "A set of words that are common to only a relatively
small group, and usually difficult to understand and so exclude the
uninitiated." Partly a hangover from the old medieval Guilds." etc
etc. (Machining got it in spades - but you guys know it, so its not an
issue)

So. There. Just thought I would throw that one in.

Andrew VK3BFA.