The silent sound of a new saw blade.

[mark mcfarlane]

Just replaced a Forrest WWII with an identical blade and could not believe how much quieter the new blade was. It is almost silent in comparison. I can clearly hear the scoring blade cut but almost no sound from the new 12"er.

I'm not suggesting that the blades are any different other than the sharpness. The cut difference was night and day. I guess using a saw blade is kind of like boiling a frog, the degradation happens so slowly.

I suspect some folks in a commercial shop can tell how sharp a blade is by listening. Cutting maybe 1000' a year didn't give me that skill.

I'm keeping a fresh cherry crosscut offcut in a drawer for comparison in the future. I don't crosscut hardwood very often on the slider. The rips on the old blade were pretty good but a long crosscut in cherry really shows the blade sharpness

[Andrew Hughes]

That’s something we don’t hear very often. Forrest blades are very quite I don’t keep a zero clearance insert on my saw unless I really need it. The gap is 1/4 on a
side and about 5/16 on the other. That helps
I can tell when my blade gets dulls when it takes both my feet to push wood through.:)

[mark mcfarlane]

That’s something we don’t hear very often. Forrest blades are very quite I don’t keep a zero clearance insert on my saw unless I really need it. The gap is 1/4 on a
side and about 5/16 on the other. That helps
I can tell when my blade gets dulls when it takes both my feet to push wood through.:)

Andrew, I can see how a zero clearance insert would increase wind noise. Not the case for me on my slider. Wide spaces around the saw blade help dust collection and the scoring blade basically does the 'underside clean cut job' of a ZCI.