On Sat, 31 Jan 2015 07:37:45 -0700, Brewster wrote:

On 1/29/15, 8:31 AM, Leon wrote:


Something to think about, and I will say this with the understanding
that not every one has as much disposable income as some and that you
may or may not use a particular tool enough to justify its cost.

While many of these "inexpensive/cheap" blades may get good reviews, you
also would do well to determine how much worth those reviews offer.

For instance, if a reviewer indicates that he has purchased many blades
and this blade is the best so far, he may not have enough experience to
give an evaluation on a blade that may not be useful long term.
Or I have had this blade for 3 months is it is the bomb.

On the other hand experienced users tend to eventually settle on one
blade or two and not change. Primarily they don't change because the
particular blade that they use lasts for years on end and trips to have
the blade resharpened are fewer, they simply stay sharp much much longer.

If you compare a $20~$30 blade to a $110 blade there is a big difference
in price. Almost with out fail the more expensive blade is going to be
the better deal. Many of these inexpensive blades don't run true and
think kerf blades are more susceptible to this and they have a softer
carbide and they have smaller carbide teeth. They are not good
candidates for being resharpened. The more expensive blades on the
other hand are typically individually flattened at the factory, use a
much better grade of carbide and can often be resharpened 10 or more times.

If you are looking at an inexpensive blade to dispose of after a
particular task, buy that one. If you think you might need a blade to
perform well and repeatedly for years to come buy a better quality blade.

At a certain point every woodworker reaches his threshold of how many
times he wants to keep replacing the same tool or blade. I bought my
last Forrest blade over 10 years ago, although a particular job provided
me with a new Forrest blade 4 years ago. I compared to most on this
newsgroup build a lot of furniture, I have 4 customers lined up right
now. The last time I had a Forrest blade resharpened was some time in
2010 and that blade is finally due to be resharpened, and that blade had
cut the pieces to literally hundreds of drawers, and in the neighborhood
of 28 pieces of furniture.



Amen!

I don't know anybody who has fully tested a variety of tools in a single
category with enough vigor to determine a 'best-of'. For these kind of
reviews I look to the magazine tests as the basis for my search, usually
these are good basic comparisons of features. For individual reviewers,
the 4/5 stars are kind of meaningless since one persons 'excellent cut
quality!' may be another persons 'so-so cut quality'.
For me, the best info comes from the 1/2 star reviews. What is bad about
that product? For saw blades, mentions of wobble and other defects say
more than arbitrary claims of quality. Basically eliminate the bad and
go from there.

I think this is true for just about anything. I never read the 4/5
star reviews because it's rare to actually get any information from
them. However, I want to know what's wrong with a product or service
so read the 1/2 star reviews. In many cases something gets a 1/2 star
review because it arrived broken but the merchant still made good on
it. I'll discount those reviews accordingly. I don't read the 4/5
star reviews but I will look at the ratio of 4/5 to 1/2.