Forrest Blade Dampner

[Craig D Peltier]

Hi this weekend I went to the WW show here in puyallup. I bought a forrest duraline blade for cutting sheet goods. They sold me on a dampner , its basically a 5 inch steel disk that goes over the arbor on the outside of the blade.
What sold me was when he held the blade in his hand an hit it like a gong with a piece of wood and then said touch the bottom of the tooth it vibrated alot. When he put dampner over it there was none. I figure this would help in not burning the wood.
Im assuming the arbor runout has to be nil and fence has to be adjusted to .0003 of an inch out to eliminate all burning.
The TS they had setup for demo worked like this.
Has 3 inch tall piece of cherry. Set fence to slice off maybe 1/8 slice , sat there half way through and talked about how it should be burning now and smoke etc.Maybe 15 seconds. Then flipped it to cut the other side so it went through. No burn at all. Pretty impressive.
It was the new 60 tooth think kerf blade they have. I think it was 3/32 kerf.
The salesman told me that my 3hp TS would require the thicker kerf due to torque. Also the dampner should be half the width of blade.
Anyone here agree or disagree with any of this? Anyone here swear by the dampner or dislike it?

Thanks

[Lee Schierer]

Personally I don't care for dampeners or blade stiffeners. Mostly they just limit the height of cut and add weight to the arbor. Unless you are really pushing the wood into the cut, the blade shouldn't deflect under most conditions. As far as the piece he was demonstrating on not burning, was probably more due to the fact that his saw was welll aligned than anything to do with the dampener. It is never a good idea to leave the wood sitting in one place while the blade is turning.

Most Freud blades are laser cut to eliminate bowing due to heat build up and have wiggly grooves cut in them that are filled with epoxy so they don't ring when you hit them or while they are cutting.

[scott spencer]

I've never noticed a difference with or without a dampener/stiffener/stabilizer, so I tend to suggest against them unless there's some arbor runout or vibration issue.

[Jim Becker]

I stopped using one a few years ago with the full kerf blades with no appreciable difference in cut quality.

[Mike SoRelle]

I stopped using one a few years ago with the full kerf blades with no appreciable difference in cut quality.


same here, I'm thinking that there might be a more appreciable difference once you get into the 16" blade and up industrial sized saws.

I got tired of bumping into my ZCI when raising the blade, or having to take it off to get full depth cuts.

Mike

[Tom Esh]

I wouldn't give up the extra cutting height unless you find it necessary. Personally I think Forrest overstates the need for stiffeners / stabilizers, or at least could qualify it better. I've been using their thin kerf blades for some time with no stiffeners and no problems. However I'm sure they'd be useful if you tend to apply high feed pressures, or for production shops where it's more likely to be the norm.

[Doug Jones from Oregon]

I used a dampener all the time on my saw dedicated to ripping...a 5hp 10" cabinet saw with a power feed...I felt that it did give me a more consistent and on some blades, it stopped the ringing.

[Matt Meiser]

I bought one, from Forrest, at a show. I've probably used it once. In fact, if you really want one, make me an offer.

[Craig D Peltier]

I bought one, from Forrest, at a show. I've probably used it once. In fact, if you really want one, make me an offer.

I did get one. Thanks.

[Craig D Peltier]

I see on my Chop Saw that I get deflection when cutting close to the edge or something really thick. Maybe this dampner will help with that?

[Steven Hardy]

Hi this weekend I went to the WW show here in puyallup. I bought a forrest duraline blade for cutting sheet goods. They sold me on a dampner , its basically a 5 inch steel disk that goes over the arbor on the outside of the blade.
What sold me was when he held the blade in his hand an hit it like a gong with a piece of wood and then said touch the bottom of the tooth it vibrated alot. When he put dampner over it there was none. I figure this would help in not burning the wood.
Im assuming the arbor runout has to be nil and fence has to be adjusted to .0003 of an inch out to eliminate all burning.
The TS they had setup for demo worked like this.
Has 3 inch tall piece of cherry. Set fence to slice off maybe 1/8 slice , sat there half way through and talked about how it should be burning now and smoke etc.Maybe 15 seconds. Then flipped it to cut the other side so it went through. No burn at all. Pretty impressive.
It was the new 60 tooth think kerf blade they have. I think it was 3/32 kerf.
The salesman told me that my 3hp TS would require the thicker kerf due to torque. Also the dampner should be half the width of blade.
Anyone here agree or disagree with any of this? Anyone here swear by the dampner or dislike it?

Thanks

I purchased blade stiffeners from sears 20 years ago. I did my own personal testing on thin kerf blades and it absolutely made a differance on both the radial arm saw and the tablesaw. At the time ,the blade of choice for me was a Pirrhana 60 tooth blade.With stiffeners,the cut was excellant. Without..it was so-so but man that blade sure CUT FAST.
I recently trimmed one eighth of an inch off the radius of mine. The method I used is not for the faint-hearted...;);)

[Joe Spear]

I didn't noticed any difference in cut quality or noise when I used the Forrest dampener with any of my blades, Forrest, non-Forrest, full-kerf or thin-kerf. The only thing it did was reduce my depth of cut, so I don't use it.