CMT Ripping Blade

[Don Baer]

I needed a new rip blade and was in one of the local suppliers in Phoenix on Friday. They had several of their CMT blades on sale and since I needed a new blade for my TS I decided to pick on up. I needed it for joining some boards and figured that if the result weren't satisfactory I would use my cordless joiner (read hand plane) to clean up the joints. The price on the blade was normaly 51.95 but was on sale at 41.95. I used it today for joining some 4/4 white OAK and was definitly impressed with the blade. All of the boards cut required no further work for perfect glue line joining.

Here the proof.
45250

The blade on my Jet CS

45251

The edge.

45252

The joint.

:D

I ripped 40 bd.ft. and the last board can be joined to the first.

[Corey Hallagan]

Very nice Don! Looks like it is doing the job. Glad to see your busy in the temp shop!

Corey

[Norman Hitt]

Hey Don, after looking at that joint, are you SURE you didn't sneak over here to Texas and "Borrow" my 72R Freud Rip Blade for that cut?:D

Nice cut and joint. Isn't it nice when a new tool really works out like it's supposed to?:)

[Mike Hill]

Don: While working on a project which required me to reduce the size of a large piece of wood, I needed to use my circular saw. The saw is cheap and the blade is cheaper. So I went to the BORG and bought a 7 1/2 inch CMT Combo blade. It made the cuts from the circular saw look like I had cut them on the table saw. For a mid priced blade, the do very well.
Mike

[Ron Jones near Indy]

Thanks for the review. I'll remember that the next time I need a blade.

[Bob Mooney]

Any other recommendations for moderately priced table saw blades. I'm wondering if I should just get a good combo blade, or pick up decent ripping/crosscutting blades. If so, what brands would be recommended beside the CMT which sounds like a good blade, at a good price.

bob

[scott spencer]

Any other recommendations for moderately priced table saw blades. I'm wondering if I should just get a good combo blade, or pick up decent ripping/crosscutting blades. If so, what brands would be recommended beside the CMT which sounds like a good blade, at a good price.

bob
Hi Bob - The best deals vary depending who's offering what. The better names are Forrest, Freud, Tenryu, Infinity, Leitz, Everlast, CMT, Systimatic, DeWalt, Ridge Carbide, to name a few.

Keep in mind that many of the bigger companies offer multiple lines aimed at different niches in the market, and not all their lines are top shelf. Not all are created equal. Freud's Diablo and Avanti lines are fine, but are their entry level (the ones found at most homecenters)....their Industrial and Premier lines are their upper offerings and are very good. The Industrial line has the prefix "LU" or "LM"...the Premier line uses the prefix "F"....as in F410. DeWalt has their series 20, 40, and 60. The series 40 and 60 are quite good, but I'd pass on the ones with the yellow trim indicating their construction grade. Tenryu has a huge line....their best bang for the buck is the "RS" Rapid Cut IMO...their best combo blade is the Gold Medal.

No combo blade will rip as aggressively as a good rip blade, but it should rip well enough in materials to close to 2", and will leave a cleaner edge than most rip blades. No combo blade will crosscut as cleanly as a high quality crosscut blade, but is alot more versatile, will cut thicker materials, and often leaves a clean enough edge to be acceptable. They essentially allow you to leave the blade on for most applications. A top combo like the Forrest WWII will cut as cleanly as many of the decent 60T crosscut blades on the market, and better than any average crosscut blade, so it really boils down to whether you want to change blades for various cuts, or just use mostly one blade for most cuts. I use a 40T WWII most of the time, and put it a DeWalt series 40 or Leitz 24T ripper for heavy ripping.

If you're looking for a top shelf full kerf 40T general purpose blade the DeWalt DW7657 is really, really good for considerably less than the Forrest equivalent.
http://www0.epinions.com/content_220309917316

Ebay often has some good deals on Forrest, Freud or DeWalt.

Mike Jackson, aka "XCESSTOOLING" at Woodnet, has some great deals going on closeouts. He's a Leitz distributor offering high quality German made blades that were made by Leitz under the Leitz, Irwin, and Delta names.

http://www.forums.woodnet.net/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=UBB4&Number=2526328&Forum=f4&Words=&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main=2516752&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=33376&daterange=1&newerval=1&newertype=m&olderval=&oldertype=&bodyprev=#Post2526328

Holbren has a couple of sweet deals too. His Ridge Carbide TS2000 is easily the equal of the WWII, plus has considerably thicker carbide....$79 delivered.
He also is offering the Tenryu RS25540 40T general purpose blade for $25 deliverd for a short time....tough deal to beat. Holbren.com

Amazon is offering 10% right now, but they just raised most of their Freud blades by 10% at the same time. :rolleyes: They've still got some decent DW deals.

[Chris Padilla]

CMT graces all the arbors in my shop and I've always been quite happy with the ripping blade. The key to using that blade is your feed rate...you do want to push it through semi-quickly to get a clean edge. Be sure to practice one or twice to figure out the feed rate as it'll vary wood species to wood species.