Table saw blade question

[Jay Jolliffe]

If you are cutting up a lot of 3/4 & 1/2" plywood for cabinets do you use a different blade that you would use for ripping hard or soft wood. Does the glue after awhile dull your blade faster.

[scott spencer]

The blade to use depends on the desired result. If the cut is critical, then a high tooth count plywood specific blade will do the best job, but any blade that will cut wood will also cut plywood. There are things you can do to improve the cut with a any blade....use a zero clearance insert, score the cut line on the exit side before cutting, use painters tape on the exit side, clean your blade, etc.

I'm not sure about dulling, but I'd guess plywood would dull slightly faster than most wood.

[Kevin Groenke]

We've found that we get the least chipping of veneer plywoods with HI-ATB blades.

These blades have teeth with alternating top bevels (pointy on alternating sides around the circumference of the blade) that are ground to higher angle than found on a typical combination blade (maybe 50deg rather than 35deg) resulting in a less massive cut and producing less chipping in thin exterior veneers. The teeth may also be set at a lower or negative rake angle (the angle of the tooth radially from the center of the blade) which results in a less agressive cut as the blade isn't tending to "self-feed" as positive rake angle blades can. We get the best results with the blade height set just higher (1/8"-1/4") than the thickness of the stock being cut.

All of the larger blade manufacturers make a blade of this sort, they are often labeled as melamine cutting blades, but work equally well in plywood.

We've been using Amana AGE's lately which we find as a good compromise between price and quality. The HI-ATB is # MD10-803. I don't think there is any advantage to more than 80T (even 60) unless your cutting really thin material.

http://www.agesawblades.com/sawblades/doublesidedmelamine-saw-blades.html