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View Full Version : Are some table saw blades "dustier" than others?



Edwin Santos
01-21-2020, 9:53 AM
I'm in the middle of a job that requires cutting thin 1/8" strips, lots of them. Like hundreds. I need a clean finish off the saw, no time for other clean up. So I was using a Forrest WWII thin kerf 40T blade and getting excellent results. To ease up the feed rate I switched over to a Freud glue line rip 30T thin kerf blade. It is giving a very good finish, but I am noticing significantly more dust thrown at me over the table compared to the Forrest blade.

Do some blades just throw more dust than others?

William Hodge
01-21-2020, 10:31 AM
I have found that a few factors contribute to worse spray off the top of the blade.

The first is no dust collection hose over the blade.

I rough rip stock with enough extra to leave a feather of wood on the outside of the saw blade. This keeps the side spray down.

Steeper hook angles on the blade tend to throw more stuff. I was never interested in body piercing until I put a 20 degree hook angle blade on my rip saw, and all kinds of stuff flew out. I'm using a 10 degree hook angle for ripping right now. I can rough rip 8/4 Sapele at 25 feet per minute with a feeder, so it seems to be plenty fast enough. I think the blade has 60 teeth, but it's 14".

Finally, having a sharp blade will make more shavings and less fine dust.

Frank Pratt
01-21-2020, 1:03 PM
Do you have a guard that can accept dust collection? If not, now might be a good time to get one.

Andrew Pitonyak
01-21-2020, 3:41 PM
Do you have a guard that can accept dust collection? If not, now might be a good time to get one.

Side note on that.... I have a SawStop. The over-blade dust collection is pretty good unless I rip off a thin strip and there is very little wood to the left of the guard. This it manages to shoot dust out the side of the guard. So some dust guards to better than others in different uses. I am usually very happy with my guard, but not always.

Jim Becker
01-21-2020, 3:58 PM
Look at the tooth geometry between those two blades. The WW-II has sharper angles on the edges of the teeth and doesn't have a raker like a ripping blade does. The ripping blade makes "chips" in line with the wood grain you are ripping from the flat toothed rakers and they act like little cups as the blade revolved...that means they throw more stuff. :)

Edwin Santos
01-21-2020, 5:20 PM
Look at the tooth geometry between those two blades. The WW-II has sharper angles on the edges of the teeth and doesn't have a raker like a ripping blade does. The ripping blade makes "chips" in line with the wood grain you are ripping from the flat toothed rakers and they act like little cups as the blade revolved...that means they throw more stuff. :)

Jim, I think you may have answered the riddle!
Indeed the WWII is a ATB and the Freud Glue Line is a TCG so the raker must be doing what you've described.

I have found if I lower the blade to just a little above the surface of the stock it is helping quite a bit. Probably more of the raker dust is going into the cabinet.

Many thanks,


Edwin,

Jim Becker
01-21-2020, 8:05 PM
Yes, for ripping it's not a terrible thing to play with the blade height to get the best combination of cutting and "mess". Only exposing the teeth near the top of the cut should likely keep a lot of the "stuff" contained as you mention. But it's still a balancing act for sure!