Bosch Jig Saw Blade Recommendation

[John Hollaway]

Just purchased a new Bosch JS572 Swiss-made Jig Saw. My first project will involve cutting both curved and straight cuts on full sheets of 1/4 inch MDF for templates. Can someone please recommend (from experience) the best T-shank blade for smooth cut edges? Thanks.

[glenn bradley]

I have been running the T101A0 for 1/4" MDF templates and they work quite well. I use the T199B0 for 1/2" MDF templates. Depending on the intricacy of your templates, there will still be some file or sanding work. Neither of these blades cuts real fast but, the time spent sawing is less than the time spent sanding / filing when using a lower tooth count in composites in my experience.

[Lee Schierer]

For straight cuts I like the Bosch T234X blades. or the T101B blades They make very smooth cuts that rival what you get with a well tuned TS and a good blade. However, they do not like cutting curves.

For curves, I like the T101AO blades, but watch your feed rate as the teeth are very small.

[Jerry Miner]

I use the Bosch T-101B (10 TPI) for most stuff, for really-clean cuts, the T-101AO (20 TPI)

[Morey St. Denis]

I also have a new JS572EBL and the earlier 1591 EVSK (these are both barrel grip versions). I too cut a good deal of splintery 1/4" luan and various thicknesses of MDF and scrap engineered flooring materials for making curved router templates. Bosch markets a three pack of blades that I find ideal for these applications, they are termed "Special for Laminates". The pack contains two of their T101BIF at 14 tpi and a narrow T101AOF at 20 tpi that is suberb for the tighter radius cuts. Bosch offers quite a variety of blades that will give you clean cuts on a straight line, just be sure to keep to 12 tpi or higher so you'll have 2-3 teeth fully engaged in those 1/4" template materials. For smoothest or "Clean" cuts, on close inspection you'll want to see very acute "dagger" shaped teeth with alternating bevel edges and the blades will be surface ground both sides with no "set" to the teeth as is typical with hand saws, band saws and some jigsaw blades. Turn On the air blower selector and when curves are involved, set the orbital action to 0.

[John Hollaway]

Glenn, Lee, Jerry & Morey,

Thanks very much for your blade recommendations. I certainly appreciate it.

John

[Rick Moyer]

Not really a recommendation but here's lots of info: http://www.boschtools.com/Products/accessories/Pages/BoschProductSubCategory.aspx?catid=1098

[Lee Schierer]

Not really a recommendation but here's lots of info: http://www.boschtools.com/Products/accessories/Pages/BoschProductSubCategory.aspx?catid=1098

That's an interesting chart. One characteristic that is clearly missing is whether or not they recommend the blade for cutting curves of any radius.

[Sam Murdoch]

I use the Bosch T-101B (10 TPI) for most stuff, for really-clean cuts, the T-101AO (20 TPI)


Me too exactly!

[Rick Moyer]

That's an interesting chart. One characteristic that is clearly missing is whether or not they recommend the blade for cutting curves of any radius.
Yeah didn't notice that. If you click on one you THINK might work it will give more detail
http://www.boschtools.com/Products/Accessories/Pages/BoschAccessoryDetail.aspx?pid=T101AO#specs