Question about blade stiffeners

[Bruce Wrenn]

Blade stiffeners make excellent paper weights. If someone (Forrest) is selling me a blade, and telling me it needs a stiffener to work best, then I don't need their blade. I wouldn't hesitate to ask "What is wrong with your blade that requires a stiffener?" Kinda like salesman trying to sell me an extended warranty on a product that he just described as being the greatest thing since since sliced bread.

[Lee Schierer]

I'm of the opion that blade stiffeners are mostly gimmicks. The cheap ones gererally aren't flat on both sides. The sets with the concave inner surfaces or raised rings apply pressure to the sides of the blade and might help in thin kerf blades. However neither of these types can be used as a single..

Before using a stiffener you need to consider if the offset of your blade is going to create a problem with your cuts. Will your throat plate accept teh offset? Your scales on your miter gauge and rip fence will be off by the thickness of the stiffener. You'll also be limited on how high you can raise the blade. They are also two more parts to put on and take off every time you change the blade.

One final consideration is to look at your arbor shaft where the blade normally sits. If there is a shoulder there, it will fit the arbor hole quite closely. Most likely the threads are cut slightly smaller in diameter than that shoulder. Moving the blade away from the flange by the thickness of the stiffener will most likely put the blade over the threads, which if cut smaller will allow the blade to be mounted off center so it will be spinning our of round.

I have two sets of stiffeners. Both hang on the wall and don't get used. IMHO blade stiffeners are a pain to use and no substitute for a well tuned saw or a dedidcated rip blade.

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Blade stiffeners make excellent paper weights. If someone (Forrest) is selling me a blade, and telling me it needs a stiffener to work best, then I don't need their blade. I wouldn't hesitate to ask "What is wrong with your blade that requires a stiffener?" Kinda like salesman trying to sell me an extended warranty on a product that he just described as being the greatest thing since since sliced bread.

Excellent point...... I do think they work though. So do extended warranties. But are they worth the investment? Only you can make that decision. Even a high end sports car can get a better set of tires.

[Larry Edgerton]

I will argue with anyone who says they have no value.

#1 reason. All of my European equipment comes with machined heavy pieces right from the factory, or at least SCMI, MiniMax, and OMGA, machines I own.

#2 The parts that come on most domestic name and import saws are a joke. Just because you have a precise arbor does not mean that an inferior stamped washer can not make your blade run out of true.

#3 Most have a larger diameter, but still do not get in the way as your stock washers do not usually come up to table height. Most of your cutting will not be at maximum cut, in fact in my shop almost never. So you can run a thin kerf with less tendency for blade wobble when pushed, and your low hp saw will therefore perform better as less HP is required.

I have a Powermatic 66 with a Freud set on it and and other than readjusting the curser on the fence there is no reason not to have them, and many reasons to have. Like I said, all of the better saw in the shop come with larger diameter machined pieces standard.

[Leonard Ratliff]

If you bought the type of "stiffeners" that come as a pair, you MUST use both parts. They are designed generally with a raised ring around the perimeter of one side. These raised areas grip the blade equally on both sides of the blade exerting equal force in the same part of the blade plate. If you don't use one of the stiffeners, you may exert force in diffeerent parts of the blade causing the blade to have slight cone shape. This is very bad for the blade and even worse for the quality of the saw cut.

The Forrest "stiffener" is only a flat plate where the whole plate rests against the blade plate. It's intent is to add spinning mass which, in theory, results in a better cut. Because it's a flat plate, it can be mounted singly on only one side of the blade.

So, in summary, if the "stiffeners" you have comes as a pair, you MUST use both. If the "stiffener" is a single plate, then you only need one. The ones that come as a pair will move the kerf necessitating changing your rip scale and making new zero clearence inserts.

Sorry to have to necro such an old thread, really, I apologize, but I felt like it was worth doing for the correction.

Single unit plates are stiffeners. If there are two parts, then it is a blade stabilizer, not a stiffener. While some might use the names interchangeably they are absolutely NOT the same thing. The do, to SOME degree, accomplish some of the same end results, but they do it in different ways and shouldn't be considered the same anymore than you'd consider your car and your truck to be the same despite the fact that they are both vehicles.

[Bernie Kopfer]

I have run blade stabilizers On my PM66 since I got it. I use them on with all blades except the dado set. Once the inserts are cut in and the aftermarket splitter is dialed in I’m not going to run any blade w/o the stabilizers. And since they don’t harm anything and might actually help a little, why not?

[Ron Selzer]

In my experience the cheaper built saws benefit from one. the higher end saws do not benefit
first start using one when had a very cheap saw now with the SawStop ICS see no benefit
Ron