Sliding Miter Saw Blade??

[CPeter James]

After having a cutoff thrown at me by my miter saw, I am in the market for a new blade. I have a Dewalt 12" dual compound slider. The present blade has a very aggressive tooth angle and I think that contributes to its grabbing. This is a premium blade, BTW. It grabs like my old radial arm saw used to.

What experience does anyone have with a smooth cutting, no grabbing blade?

CPeter

[John Pollman]

CPeter,

I've got the same saw and back in December I was right in the middle of installing 1200 square feet of hardwood flooring for a customer and realized that I needed a new blade. I headed over to Home Depot to pick up a new DeWalt blade. I went to the tool corral and grabbed one and started walking out. But something caught my eye, it was another blade by Irwin. The package said something like "Value Pack" or along those lines. It was a 12" miter saw blade but it had a "free" laser guide packaged with it. I think it was $49 ! It sounded interesting so I went back and looked it over. I ended up putting the DeWalt blade back and picked up the Irwin. It's an 80 tooth Trim/Finish blade. The laser is pretty cool. It just replaces the washer on the outside of the blade. When you reinstall the blade just put the laser in place and tighten the bolt. When you spin up the saw the laser comes on and gives you a reference line. It works very well for me. I finished the flooring job and after I was done the customer who was in the middle of a MAJOR gut, remodel, and additon decided that he did not have enough time to do all that he had planned on doing himself. He ended up asking me to give him a price for the trim work too. Well he was a friend so I just told him if he wanted to pay me an hourly rate I'd come and trim for him. I ended up trimming out the entire first floor (base, windows, and doors) and a good chunk of the upstairs. I used this new blade for the entire job and it worked flawlessly for me. Sorry for rambling but I just thought I'd give you a little review of my new blade. Overall it was well worth $49 in my opinion.

Take care,

John

[Dave Sweeney]

Make sure that, whatever brand you buy, the blade has a negative hook angle. A negative hook angle blade will force your workpiece down and back into the fence. A positive hook angle blade will be much more likely too lift the workpiece off the table than a negative hook angle blade.

[Russ Massery]

I'm big on forrest blades, I have the WWII on my table saw. and a chopmaster on my Dewalt slider. It's on sale at forrestbladesonline.com for 114.00 I've had this blade on there 3yrs, still cuts as good as new.

[Mike Deschler]

Make sure that, whatever brand you buy, the blade has a negative hook angle. A negative hook angle blade will force your workpiece down and back into the fence. A positive hook angle blade will be much more likely too lift the workpiece off the table than a negative hook angle blade.

Dave is absolutely correct. After I changed the blade on my LS1013 to something other than one with a negative hook angle, I threw a cutoff, broke the fence and dammed near broke my thumb. Needless to say, I am a believer about the right blade for its intended application. I believe Freud has a negative hook angled cutoff blade which is correct for cutoffs.