Have a new blade. Did I get the right one?

[Anthony Whitesell]

I found the the local shop makes up Lenox blades at a reasonable price. I pick up a 1/2" 0.025" 4tpi blade. It does cut like a hot knife through butter (I'm resawing 6-8" of eastern white pine). The other two older blades were working fine on some thinner stuff I was cutting for the firewood scrap bin, but I'm sure the blades are toast otherwise. The finish from the new blade is not as nice as I would like. I only made one cut as I also picked up the lumber this morning and it hasn't had time to acclimate or finish re-drying from being stacked outside. I will play with the tension some to see if it improves. If that's not the right move, then I'm thinking I need to change the tooth count. Should I get more teeth or less? If I start hearing more, I have a Timberwolf 1/2" 0.025" 6tpi that I'm positive this time, is actually unused (it still has the tag stapled to it).

[Van Huskey]

When you say quality of cut do you mean the "finish" or do you mean the cut isn't as straight as you would like. In general I would be using less teeth, but that won't help the finish, all other things being equal. If you want really nice finish on resaws like for veneer where you don't want to sand off much wood a carbide tipped blade is the way to go, the lack of set moves it closer to a TS finish.

[Anthony Whitesell]

I haven't checked straight yet. It looks straight, but I'll know that when I run it through the planer (which won't be for a while, I want to let it dry and equalize a bit first). I was primarily thinking the quality, ie., lots of saw marks.

Interesting note on the carbide tipped blades. I didn't know (or I didn't put the information together) that they didn't have any set. I had been able to use the Timberwolf blade to make some 3/32" (finished to 1/16") veneer in maple, but I that blade isn't up to that task any more. The fact it is a soft wood, eastern white pine, could also be adding to the issue.