"Disposable" 10" rip and 12" crosscut blades?

[Kent A Bathurst]

I may have a need for a 10" rip blade and a 12" crosscut/CMS blade for torturing pressure treated lumber. My Forrest gang ain't coming off the bench to play in that game. My thinking is something that will do the task, and not be worth sharpening when I'm done - use them, and keep them in the blade cabinet until they are completely spent.

I see at Amazon an Oldham 10" rip for about twenty bucks, and an Oldham 12" crosscut for twenty-eight bucks, both prices include Prime shipping.

Any others out there that you have used that would be cheaper? I need something to make sawdust, not something to leave a pretty edge.

[scott spencer]

The Oldham would probably work fine for that. I'd also consider Oshlun, Kempston, or Onsrud (if any remain on Ebay)...

[jack howery]

I bought a dollar blade from harbor freight and it worked well for me.not sure uf the price now but for pressure treated it worked fine.

[Jerome Hanby]

I bought some Irwin blades when Woodcraft was closing them out for next to nothing. I load one of those up when I'm cutting treated lumber, regular old 2x building material, or MDF.

[Bruce Wrenn]

What is the matter? Don't you think your Forrests can handle treated wood? I know my Delta 7657's can!

[Ryan Mooney]

These meet the very definition of disposable: http://www.mcgillswarehouse.com/c/248/carbide-tipped

I picked up a 10 pack of the 12" 100 tooth wood blades when I was doing some laminate a few years ago (no reason to by a good blade for that, it eats them just as fast as the cheap ones). I think I paid $10 per shipped, haven't actually used them all yet - appears that they've changed the pricing since then and who knows if the blades are even related...

Rough overview :

haven't lost a tooth
Cuts ok, not nearly as clean as forrest, etc.. but then I don't worry if there is bit of something in the wood either.
I've used a couple of them pretty heavily with decent life and ok performance (once I was done with the laminate project I just used them as general construction blades).

To be clear these are NOT quality blades, but you did ask for disposable :D

[Michael Mayo]

I was at Sears to day with the wifey to look at dryers.......:rolleyes: and happened to look at the tools section on the way out and saw a 10" 40 tooth carbide for $6.99 so I bought one just out of curiosity. Put it on the saw this afternoon and cut some Oak with it and frankly couldn't tell too much difference between it and my 80 tooth red blade. Slightly more chip out but it cut well and relatively clean. I am not a big blade snob but I thought for <$10 it was a decent cutting tool.

[Tim Howell]

Check the blade run-out before you kill a bearing in your expensive table saw. Just a safety issue. I bought 5ea 7" from HF - one of the blades had .030 run out, the others ran high but ok and they all cut fine. Cheap and QC aren't on the same page.

[Ole Anderson]

Try a relatively cheap low tooth count Freud Diablo or similar. Then spend a few bucks get it sharpened (if it needs it) when you are done and you have a decent blade for next time you don't want to take a chance with a high end blade. And if you run treated lumber on your cast iron table, make sure to wipe it down when you are done as the moisture in PT will rust your table. Been there. And wear a N95 dust mask.

Although frankly, there isn't anything in PT lumber that will damage a blade.

[Rich Engelhardt]

Lowes sometimes has a three pack of Irwin blades for ~ $20.00.
It's a buy two get one free deal.
IIRC, there's one rip and two crosscut. Or maybe the other way around.

I used those before I did what Ole suggested.
I picked up a Freud LU87R010 thin kerf rip blade from Amazon for a killer price not too long ago.
IIRC, it was ~ $25.
It's a much better blade at not too much more money.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Check the blade run-out before you kill a bearing in your expensive table saw. Most saws (both contractors and cabinet) use 6203's for the arbor. Did you ever check to see what kind of lateral loads they are designed to take?

[Kent A Bathurst]

What is the matter? Don't you think your Forrests can handle treated wood? I know my Delta 7657's can!

Of course they can handle PT lumber. The problem is that the PT chemicals are very hard on sharp thingies, and my off-the-cuff guess is that I can get as much out of a "disposable" blade as I could get out of a sharpening cycle on a Forrest on a dollar-for-dollar basis.

Having said that, I do run PT past a Forrest when [a] it is just one or two cuts, and [b] it is not newly-sharpened...I have a pair of Forrest 40t 10" TS blades and a pair of Forrest 80t 12" CMS blades in rotation. If one is closer to resharpening than it is to newly sharpened, I'll use it, but not one fresh-out-of-the-wax.

I may be in a situation where I have a large amount - relatively speaking - of PT to run, and if it's basically a dollar-for-dollar trade, I'd sooner get the job done with a cheap blade and toss it rather than resharpen a Forrest.

The OEM blades I used to use for this task left in the recycling bin a few years ago...............

[Kent A Bathurst]

I was at Sears to day with the wifey to look at dryers.......:rolleyes: and happened to look at the tools section on the way out and saw a 10" 40 tooth carbide for $6.99 so I bought one just out of curiosity. Put it on the saw this afternoon and cut some Oak with it and frankly couldn't tell too much difference between it and my 80 tooth red blade. Slightly more chip out but it cut well and relatively clean. I am not a big blade snob but I thought for <$10 it was a decent cutting tool.

Now we're talkin', Michael.........Sears has a 10" 2-pack for twenty bucks - one 28t and one 40t. The 28t would be perfect for that freshly-treated stuff that leaks water like a bad plumbing joint.

[Biff Johnson]

Do you have a saw sharpening shop near you? I'm sure they would have a great selection of used blades, probably inexpensive.

[David Hostetler]

I use Freud Diablo blades almost exclusively. They are inexpensive enough when you catch them on sale to consider them disposable. Unless your sharpening service is seriously cheap that is... I get excellent results with these blades too...

If I wanted absolutely bottom of the barrel pricing, with at least reasonably passable results (looks like a blade cut it instead of smashing rocks through the fibers kind of cut you get with a HF blade...) I would say the Irwins and Olson blades can be hard to beat, reasonable cut quality, very inexpensive blades...