regular or thin kerf?

[Phillip Gregory]

In my experience the only times you will really notice thin kerf vs. full kerf are:

1. When using a relatively underpowered saw. I have seen zero difference in performance with using thin vs. full kerf blades on my 3 hp cabinet saw even when doing something ugly like ripping 2 1/2 or 3" thick rock-hard old, dry oak. However I also have a late-1980s ~1 hp Craftsman 10" iron CMS that will certainly let you know you tried to cut through something larger than about a 1x4 with a full-kerf blade.

2. You will run into issues using a thin-kerf blade if you have a tablesaw with a splitter or riving knife designed for full-kerf blades. You will bind up and the results are not that enjoyable.

3. Thin kerf blades tend to be less expensive than full-kerf blades. For example, Freud's Diablo line are all thin kerf; you have to pay about 50% more to get a regular-line Freud blade that is full kerf. Ditto with pretty well everything you pick up at a BORG being thin-kerf only. The DeWalt, Irwin, etc. blades there are invariably thin-kerf only.

[Roy Turbett]

If your saw has a riving knife or a splitter, will the thin kerf blade provide a wide enough kerf to feed the stock without binding on the riving knife or splitter?

I had that problem with my 3 hp Unisaw and Biesmeyer splitter. I couldn't use the splitter with the thin kerf blade for the reason you site. However, it wasn't a problem with my 5 hp Industrial Sawstop and riving knife because the riving knife on the Sawstop isn't as wide. I used a Freud Diablo thin kerf rip blade to trim a 2 1/4" hard maple workbench top from a school shop without a problem until I hit a nail some kid had buried. Fortunately I had the saw in bypass mode.

[Allan Speers]

I agree with everyone else, but one thing to note:

These days, the term "thin kerf" is not so clear. 10" blades come in all sorts of thicknesses. Freud thin-kerfs are around 0.091, but I've seen some high quality ones (Tenryu) as thin as 0.075. My 10" Onsrud "thin Kerf" combination blade is 0.098 - yet the Forrest Woodworker I (standard kerf) is only 0.100, and Infinity tools offers a "standard-kerf" rip blade at only .097. The Forrest Woodworker II is 0.125, so that's getting up there, and quite a few industrial 10" are 0.130 and thicker, but also a lot of "standard kerf" carbide-tipped blades are only ~ 0.110,

- So you might want to pay close attention, and get something in the 0.100 - 0.110" range.

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Given the large swing in thicknesses available, that question about splitters is really pretty interesting.