rip vs trim

[Rian de Bruyn]

What is the difference between a rip blade and a trimming blad ??????? and can I rip with a trimming blade ????????

[Sam Babbage]

Short answer: a rip blade has a lesser number of teeth that are shaped like little chisels, it's designed to cut wood along the grain, a crosscut blade has a greater number of teeth that are shaped like alternate knives, somewhat like scissors, it's designed to cut across the grain (and cut manufactured board). Generally, a crosscut blade will be more effective at ripping than a rip blade at crosscuting. There are also combo blades that are designed to do both, but not as well as dedicated blades. Personally, I tend to use a crosscut blade most of the time and only switch to a rip blade when doing copious amounts of (or critical) ripping, partly because at less than 10" I will generally thickness planer to final width. Basically a crosscut blade will rip reasonably well, but significantly slower than a rip blade, but a rip blade will give poor results at crosscutting, regardless of speed.

[Curt Harms]

There are at least two different grinds to ripping blades. I have a Freud ripping blade where the teeth are flat ground and there are 24 of them. Freud also sells a ripping blade , their 'glue line rip' which is triple chip ground and there are 30. So in each case there are fewer teeth and larger gullets on the rip blades compared to combo or cross cut blades. The flat ground teeth work well for cutting spline slots or other applications where you want a flat square kerf.

[Rian de Bruyn]

I know the difference between a rip and crosscut blade but leuco make a trimming blad that are 10" 24 T the same as their ripping blade but are there a difference ????

[John McClanahan]

The difference is probably in the angles that the tips of the teeth are ground at.

John