What would a better saw blade be?

[Tom Walz]

What would a better saw blade be?

There are a couple of us kicking around the idea of building a better 10” saw blade. Actually we were thinking about combining technologies to build an insanely good saw blade. It would probably be better than anybody really needed and we probably wouldn’t make money but it would be fun to build; sort of like the incredible table made out of a 2x4.

If we were going to build a new 10” saw blade what would you like to see?

We were thinking 10” blade
What style?
What bore?
What kind of grind? Something like Forrest with a very narrow side clearance and ground shoulder or a more conventional grind such as pretty well everyone else?
Is 0.003” run out all right or should it be flatter?
How thin a kerf do you really want considering that these blades are meant to be used?

Some ideas we had were:
1. Higher nickel saw body for toughness – it works well on larger saws in sawmills
2. Temper the body, grind it then temper it again for best flatness
3. Use an advanced grade of saw tips harder than C-4 but tougher than C-1 for long life. They also have a higher lubricity than carbide so they feed a bit more easily.
4. A braze alloy with manganese for toughness and purified flux.
5. A Military grade coating.
6. Something like multi - pass 600 grit grinding.

Thanks,
tom

P.s. this might make more sense if you consider that there are folks who build tools the same way a lot of people here build furniture. We just love doing it.

[Brian Penning]

P.s. this might make more sense if you consider that there are folks who build tools the same way a lot of people here build furniture. We just love doing it.

OR some people simply just have to keep trying to reinvent the wheel? :rolleyes:;)

[scott spencer]

Hi Tom - The term "better" is really relative to an objective, so I think you'd need to identify the intended application and environment first...general or special purpose, commercial or amateur shop, artist or handyman, continuous or sporadic use, etc.

[Tom Walz]

Dear Scott,

You are correct, of course. Those of us involved in this are in the custom industrial area. There are technologies used here that are not being used in production saws. Right now 0.003” total runout seems be very good. Would there be any advantage in dropping this to 0.002” or 0.0015” total runout? How much does anybody care how often they need to sharpen a saw blade? How important are coatings? How important is a faster feed rate?

Basically people come to us with saw problems and we solve them. Sort of looking for problems to solve here.

Tom

[glenn bradley]

I guess the better saw blade would be a small scrap of paper. On the paper it would say;

You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,

If the person reads it enough, they realize there are plenty of good blades out there. They also might realize that if you'll just use one appropriate to what your doing, you'll be happy instead of using a "General Purpose" blade for everything, expecting great results and being disappointed. ;-)

[Mark Singer]

The blades out there seem really good! It is usually not a finish tool before glue up and the finer tolerance does not yeild benefits

[Tim Malyszko]

I guess the better saw blade would be a small scrap of paper. On the paper it would say;

You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,
You can swap blades in under a minute,

If the person reads it enough, they realize there are plenty of good blades out there. They also might realize that if you'll just use one appropriate to what your doing, you'll be happy instead of using a "General Purpose" blade for everything, expecting great results and being disappointed. ;-)


Amen to that. I'd rather spend my money on a combination of blades that all do a great job at their intended purpose instead of buying 1 "general purpose" blade that does an average job on everything. Switching blades is not a major inconvenience.

[scott spencer]

Well, I sure can't speak for anyone other than myself, but I see low runout as a good thing! :D I suspect most runout comes from the arbor and the blade just multiplies it, so I really don't know how low it needs to be in the blade to be negligible.

A low side clearance gives a nice polished edge, but it's always a balancing act between "burnished" and "burned". Any solutions for a polished edge and reduced burning? How about a low side clearance on a percentage of the teeth instead of all?

Coatings are easier to clean and help prevent corrosion...some of the colors are cool looking too. I'm not convinced there's a performance difference, and I don't find them to be worth a big price premium...perhaps they run cooler and therefore help edge life?

Aside from the new Freud Fusion and the similar new Infinity Super General, there aren't a lot of innovations in general purp blades....most just kind of mimick the WWII format or the standard 50T ATB/R. I know some offer a 40T ATB/R without the large gullet, and Infinity's Combomax is a 50T ATB/R with a chamfered raker that seems to cut a bit cleaner than those with a standard flat raker. Tenryu offers an ATAF on their RS25540, which is a decent $30 blade, but certainly not state of the art....I'd be curious if there are benefits in that grind in a premium blade. I'd also be curious about a TK GLR that'd handle to 2" material reasonably well.

I tend to prefer good general purp or combo blades with a good feedrate. My preference in feedrate really relates more to lack of resistance and improved control than a gain in speed, plus it tends to allow thicker materials with less effort. If I had to live with one blade right now, I think I'd go with a 30T WWII TK for my current saw. (22124) I get glue ready edges in hardwood from even my 30T WWII and other 40-50T blades...my 80T blades do cut a tad cleaner with a bit less tearout, but in hardwoods they still leave small saw marks, so some touch up is needed before applying a finish...that's why I don't see much gained by switching to a cleaner cutting blade in hardwood...plywood and veneers are a different matter. I do switch to a 24T ripper for really heavy cuts.

What role will ceramic teeth play in future blades?

[Michael Gibbons]

If I remember correctlly, Forrest blades are flat to within .001.

[Dave Lehnert]

Doing focus groups at my day job has told us customers get all excited when you tell them we are going to do this or that. The room is filled with excitement. You feel like a rock star. Then you tell them what it is going to cost them and it like driving on the rim of a flat tire. Everyone wants the best of everything that someone else will have to pay for.
My point is to get a true feel what people want you have to give an idea of cost involved.

Good luck!

[Pat Germain]

Forget blades. I want a plasma cutter on my table saw! Seriously, if someone could develop a plasma laser capable of cutting wood without burning it, that would be a revolution worth the cost.

As they say, any significant advancement in technology should be indistiguible from magic. No matter what you do to a metal saw blade, it's still a metal saw blade. A plasma cutter would be magic!

If we simply must stay inside the metal blade box, I would like to see a saw blade made with diamond dust as the cutting edge. I would think such a blade could make baby-butt-smoothe cuts and would last a very long time. I know you can by diamond dust router bits. Why not a diamond dust saw blade?

[Pat Germain]

OR some people simply just have to keep trying to reinvent the wheel? :rolleyes:;)

No offense, Brian, but that post sounds like the proverbial DOM (Defender of Mediocrity).

[Brian Penning]

No offense, Brian, but that post sounds like the proverbial DOM (Defender of Mediocrity).

None taken. It's just that there are a lot of blades out there that are, imho, way better than mediocre. And even if you did come up with a better blade I think you'd be hard pressed to convert ww'ers from their favourite.

[Eric Haycraft]

Forget blades. I want a plasma cutter on my table saw! Seriously, if someone could develop a plasma laser capable of cutting wood without burning it, that would be a revolution worth the cost.

They already have laser cutters that will work with wood without burning. The key is to have the laser hot enough to vaporize rather than burn the material. The main drawbacks of such a system are costs (think millions to cut 2" hardwood) and the fact that you can only do through cuts. No dados, rabbets, etc. These laser systems seem to be used often for inlay work with thin materials.



I know you can by diamond dust router bits. Why not a diamond dust saw blade?
Diamond blades can be found, but they are best suited for extremely hard materials that don't burn like tile and concrete. A diamond bit in wood would just get gummed up with wood fibers and you end up just burning through the material via friction rather than abrasion (yes, I have done this, and no I would not do it again.)

[Charles McCracken]

If we simply must stay inside the metal blade box, I would like to see a saw blade made with diamond dust as the cutting edge. I would think such a blade could make baby-butt-smoothe cuts and would last a very long time. I know you can by diamond dust router bits. Why not a diamond dust saw blade?

PCD Diamond blades are common in the industrial markets. One of the most popular uses right now is for cutting fiber cement siding and backer board. These blades typically have 4 to 6 teeth (the new Freud version is the Diablo D0704DH). The cost for a blade with more teeth would be prohibitive for most users so they are normally found in production environments. Here's some:
http://www.freud.it/page39b.do?par5q=1378&link=oln3q.redirect

[Pat Germain]

^^ Interesting info, guys. Thanks.

I can understand these solutions come up short in the "cost effective" category. Maybe someday a home laser cutter capable of handling 2" hardwood will be practical. After all, when I was a kid, a VCR cost over ten grand.

[Dick Bringhurst]

Interesting question. One of the things I like about my Tenryu's are - they are quiet! and very little run out. I also have a blade made by Carbide Technologies that is still very sharp and is 14 years old. However when it is time to sharpen it a normal sharpening service probably won't be able to do it. I'll have to find a service that can sharpen ceramic carbide. I'm not sure that will happen in my lifetime unless I hit some metal. I say that because sharpening is a significant factor for many people. I like a general purpose blade, but don't really mind changing blades to get better cuts. Dick B.

[Tom Walz]

It is my understanding that Forrest does extra flattening steps including extra grinding to get beautiful flatness. The word is that Forrest refuses to use magnetic fixturing on their surface grinder because the magnetic field distorts the plate. It sounds a little extreme but that is how you get great.

Runout of 0.001” is possible.

Re: Ceramic saw tips. We now have a couple successful grades we are selling under the name Cermet 2. They are easier to use than true cermets and more dependable. About 90% of the people who try them, like them. (If you read this forum you will realize that getting 90% of people to agree on anything is pretty phenomenal.) Some of the original cermet saws are still coming in for sharpening after 5 and 6 years. The only real market for them is the person / company that builds and runs their own saws. This would be primarily sawmills now and we are starting to see some success in panel plants.

We have sold sample blades to some of the biggest names in the business including one company that claims to be the biggest. The answer is always that they can’t afford to sell a saw blade that lasts twice or three times as long.

Here’s the way it works. Suppose a good saw company makes really good blades and has a loyal following. Figure they do $100 million a year in sales. If they sell blades that last twice as long they can’t get twice as much money for them. Roughly $100 million in sales would drop to $75 million in the first year. They would pick up new customers but it would be a while before a loyal Forrest user switched to Freud or vice versa for example. So selling saw blades that last longer is economic disaster.

In addition many blades are sold though distributors who make most of their money sharpening blades.

Major tool innovations seldom come from major players because they are too upsetting. Jim Forrest Sr. is one of my heroes. He had a sharpening shop and decided to build the world’s best saw blade. Disston was huge name at that time. In the early 1980’s Systi Matic was growing like crazy in Seattle because they were in carbide. At the same time Disston was closing their Seattle plant because steel saw sales were dropping or gone especially for mill saws.

We have done work for pretty well everyone in the industry. I gave a speech to a group of saw shop owners and afterwards an engineer from one of the huge companies came up and said that he had never been asked to make a better saw blade, just a cheaper one.

To a great extent Brian Penning is correct.

This is a group of folks who can’t leave well enough alone.

Peerless Saw co. has some steel that is generally considered “too good” for 10” blades. We have some better braze alloy and better tips. Super Thin Saws has been bought by UCT. John Schultz of Super Thin Saws is definitely one of the best at saw manufacturing. UCT coatings are doing really well in military applications. The folks at RKO are truly great at custom saw blades. There is a guy in Oregon named Greg Byrnes who may be the best there is at making and using wheels to grind carbide. There is a new coolant that is entirely natural plant oil so it has a high affinity for metal and carbide and thus gives smoother finishes and so on.

I guess we’re all victims of Penning’s law.

I was hoping there would be a demand for blades that cut better and lasted longer but I do have to admit that there are a lot of good saw blades on the market today and more coming on all the time.

That’s probably more answer than you wanted but thanks for asking.

Tom.

[Tom Walz]

Dick,

That is one of our original blades. Let us know when it needs to be sharpened.

tom