Rob:

The new Freud LM74 is an outstanding Glue Line rip blade, and while I
haven't tried the Forrest for comparison, I can't imagine how a blade could
do much better than the LM74 (which, in the interest of full disclosure, we
sell). Freud has optimized the blade for cutting 3/4" thick stock. If you
need to cut thicker material, like 1-1/2" thick, this probably isn't the
best choise. Using a properly adjusted cabinet table saw, you can rip 1/16"
wide strips off 3/4" thick stock, then put them back together and you'll be
hard pressed to find the glue lines!

HTH,

Jim Ray, President
McFeely's Square Drive Screws
www.mcfeelys.com


"Rob Ritch" wrote in message
news:1110289556.09ff6da41c36672ae856c373fe78fc86@t eranews...
Due to an unfortunate brain fade I need to replace my ripping blade. I
was
making a 45 bevel cut on my TS this weekend and was tired and did not
check
to make sure the blade cleared the factory metal insert. Yep you guessed
it, it didn't. Fired up the saw and immediately got that tell tale sound
of the blade hitting metal. Shut down the saw and checked the blade.
There were not broken or missing teeth, but they were all nice and shiney
on the side that hit the insert. Bottom line I, I now do not trust the
blade, not in the mood to have any teeth flying off the blade while
spinning at ~5,000 RPM. So I am going to replace the blade. The blade I
have is a Freud 24T blade, that was ok, but I was never really happy with
the cut quality. The blade and fence were both aligned within .001 of the
miter slot so it was not an alignment issue. Now for my question, I am
considering the Systi-Matic 24T glue line rip blade, but I have not been
able to find any reviews other than "I have a Forrest and love it" I know
the Forrest is a great blade, but not what I am interested in. I want to
use dedicated ripping and cross cutting blades. Does anyone have real
world experience with this blade, or a recommendation for another
dedicated
ripping blade that I should consider? Thanks in advance

-Rob