Blades for a slider?

[Bryan Hunt]

Whelp, I went and ordered a Hammer K4 and now I'm looking at blades. Right now, I'm using the following 10" Forrest blades: 20 tooth Woodworker II, 40 tooth Woodworker II, and 70 tooth Ply Veneer. Seems like I should get the 12" 30 tooth Woodworker II for rip and the 48 tooth Woodworker II for crosscut. Would I still need a 70+ tooth blade for plywood, or does the scoring blade make that unnecessary? For those of you with sliders, what has been your experience?

[Mark e Kessler]

Almost all my cuts on my slider are with a 48t atb, solid, ply, rip, crosscut, if i have a critical crosscut say a miter in solid I have a 120t atb and i also have a 28t atb if i was doing alot of ripping in solid but honestly the 48 does like 80-90 percent of it for me. I would start with a 48t I don’t know how much a Forrest costs but I have had good luck industrial Freud about $100-$120. I have the ridge carbide dado and it is super nice, it’s “bat ears” don’t protrude as much as the forrest or freud. And no you shouldn’t need a 70t blade with scoring all of your blowout woes will be gone...


mark

Whelp, I went and ordered a Hammer K4 and now I'm looking at blades. Right now, I'm using the following 10" Forrest blades: 20 tooth Woodworker II, 40 tooth Woodworker II, and 70 tooth Ply Veneer. Seems like I should get the 12" 30 tooth Woodworker II for rip and the 48 tooth Woodworker II for crosscut. Would I still need a 70+ tooth blade for plywood, or does the scoring blade make that unnecessary? For those of you with sliders, what has been your experience?

[Sebastien La Madeleine]

I own a K3 and am kind of envious of you now

With that being said, I had a traditional 3HP cabinet saw before and used the typical Freud/Forrest/What ever was cheap combination of blades. Once the K3 got here, I shopped around to have them rebored and around here, the reboring was more than half the price of new blades.

So shopping for new blades I went. I tried the Felder Silent Power, the Hammer, the Infinity tools, the Ridge Carbide, the CMT and finally the Tenryu.

I ended up buying the whole line of Tenryu blades and boy am I glad I gave them a shot. They come bored at no extra cost straight from the factory and they cut something fierce! I have been very satisfied with the factory sharpening and had them sharpened a few times by now and they just slice through the wood.

Even when pushing through 12/4 hard maple, the IW-30028CBD3 just makes it feel like the wood is not even there! The crosscut blade leaves a perfect glassy smooth finish with no chipout or splintering.

I don't use the combo all that much, I'd rather swap blade for the ATB 28T rip and the ATBR 100T for crosscut. For plywood I prefer the ATAFR 100T. (Why use a swiss army knife when you have a great tool doing a better job...)

The plywood blade will crosscut the worst splintery baltic birch with no problem without using the incisor.

I only use the incisor with melamine now and don't see the point with plywood. The HATB melamine blade do work good, but I still up the incisor to give myself a perfect chip free cut.

The combo is mostly used for unimportant stuff like 2x spruce and construction plywood. As soon as I work with hardwood or baltic birch plywood, I swap blades.

No affiliation just a satisfied customer.

They are not as common as Freud or CMT but Amazon and Carbide processors both carry them.

Hope this helps!

[Sebastien La Madeleine]

I wanted to add a few things blade unrelated.

The best addition I did was a a zero clearance insert. I copied the one from Hammer out of hard maple and it completely eliminated bottom tearout in all material. The bevel throat plate is so far away from the blade, it's not providing any support.

I also fabricated a block that goes at the end of the crosscut fences and that removed the slight chance of blowout at the end of a cut. I had to tweak it to be able to have it go under the riving knife's dust collection hood but it works great.

Fritz and Franz also help in that area.

I am planning to fabricate another zero clearance out of plastic just to remove the weakness on the wagon side of maple or I might just copy Marius Hornberg's idea of making it protrude under the wagon.

[Bryan Hunt]

Fritz and Franz also help in that area.

I'm for sure making a Fritz and Franz (my wife calls it the Hanz and Franz) jig.

[David Stone (CT)]

I have a K3, without a scoring blade. Mostly, I use a combo blade like Mark and my recommendation would be to start with one of those and use it as a baseline for seeing what else you might want or need. My better blades happen to be Gudho (sp?), just because back in the day when I got my saw (twenty years ago) they had a sales rep offering a deal to Felder Owners Group members. I got a couple Hammer-branded blades, too, and found them uninspiring--but maybe they've improved since. ...You could even get your current Forrest blades bored for the Hammer/Felder arbor and pins and keep them around.

PS: Totally agree with the suggestion to fabricate a zero clearance insert and use that in lieu of the lame factory insert, except when necessary to tilt the blade. Aside from reducing chipping, there's a safety and comfort factor. The big gap on the supplied insert is tailor-made to allowing the blade to pull narrow off-cuts down below the table suddenly and at high speed. It can be pretty startling when that happens and, potentially, unsafe. It also obstructs the dust collection hose, leading to blockages. Mine is made of phenolic, which has held up well.

[Mark e Kessler]

Sebastien brings up a few good things, here is what I did. This is a k700s but no reason can’t be done on any other slider

6FAD41DC-99C9-4039-B21B-3485058BEC55.jpg70C08B71-9B65-43B8-80A1-C3D6D59C6DE4.jpgEAE5AAFC-5009-46BE-B009-B954DD9D7D57.jpg

I wanted to add a few things blade unrelated.

The best addition I did was a a zero clearance insert. I copied the one from Hammer out of hard maple and it completely eliminated bottom tearout in all material. The bevel throat plate is so far away from the blade, it's not providing any support.

I also fabricated a block that goes at the end of the crosscut fences and that removed the slight chance of blowout at the end of a cut. I had to tweak it to be able to have it go under the riving knife's dust collection hood but it works great.

Fritz and Franz also help in that area.

I am planning to fabricate another zero clearance out of plastic just to remove the weakness on the wagon side of maple or I might just copy Marius Hornberg's idea of making it protrude under the wagon.

[Bryan Hunt]

You could even get your current Forrest blades bored for the Hammer/Felder arbor and pins and keep them around.

Yeah, I read about that. I think I'll sell them with my current saw and hopefully make it a more attractive buy. I also have had projects that used 16/4 material and 12" blades would be nice.

[Dave Cav]

I have a Minimax SC4E. One of the first things I made for it was a ZCI. On the Minimax they're pretty simple to fabricate; I just widebelt sanded some plywood until it was the correct thickness and drilled holes for the hold down machine screws. It works fine but I'm looking for some scrap laminate flooring to make one a bit more durable.

My good blade is a Tenryu GM-30560 12" 60 tooth ATB. It's the best saw blade I have EVER used; I have two of them. I use it for everything, crosscuts and rips, solid and panel stock, although I don't use much panel stock, and still haven't use the scoring blade. I haven't ripped anything over 2" but if I did I would use one of my dedicated rip blades.

I also have a Oshlun SBW-120048 12-Inch 48 tooth ATB blade I use for general rough work. It's been sharpened at least once and cuts better than when it was new but still it's nothing like the Tenryu.

I've also got an F&F jig and a parallel positioner made from an Incra LS positioner.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

Congrats on the new saw!

You can drive yourself a little crazy with sawblade choices. Some of you wierdos like that , but for those that don't want the stress, just get a good combo blade to start. Several have been mentioned, put it to work and don't worry about it. As you use it, you'll see if you want more blades. When I bought my slider, I also bought the lot of available blades. In practical use, I rarely change from a combo though. A slider is a fantastic tool because it so effortlessly rips and crosscuts, so why would you add another step in that, like changing blades all the time? You'll find a good combo that will do fine on both and you will use it 90% of the time. Get two.

Personally I only switch blades if I want a a flat bottom kerf, an doing a bunch of miters, or a lot of ripping of pine or something sticky. Otherwise, there is always a Forrest WWII in there.

[Jim Becker]

My "standard" blade on my slider is a 12" 48t WW-II. I own an 80t "plywood" blade that came with the saw, but it's been years since I've used it. But I work mostly in a mix of solid stock with some sheet goods, so the blade I keep on there is worthy for both. And I do use my scoring blade for veneer sheet goods...it works just great with my Forrest blades and is the identical .125" width.

If you are cutting a lot of sheet goods, a dedicated, higher tooth count blade with a sheet goods optimized tooth pattern is still ideal even with the scoring blade. That's why I keep that original blade available...If I were to find I had a job/project that involved a lot of sheet goods, I'd likely use that 80t blade for the work and it would preserve the WW-II blades for the mixed environment. Sheet goods are abrasive because of the glues used to make them.

BTW, I've also stuck with one blade brand so there is a constant kerf width. There is unfortunately a lot of variability in kerf width across different manufacturers and while that's not a show stopper, I prefer the zero adjustment approach of having all my tooling identical.

[Brian W Evans]

+1 for 40T Woodworker II (12"). I keep it clean & sharp and it does everything I want. I have two so I can send one out for sharpening and not have to wait for it to get back.

That said, if I had a veneered panel that was really important, I'd probably put my veneer blade in just to be safe.

[Rod Sheridan]

Hi, for most work in solid wood and non veneered plywood I use an FS Tools 50 tooth combination blade.

For veneered panels I use an 80T ATB blade in combination with the scoring saw.

Melamine I use an 80T TCG plus the scoring saw.

For thick ripping, especially with a feeder I use a rip blade.....Rod

[Jeff Monson]

Sebastien brings up a few good things, here is what I did. This is a k700s but no reason can’t be done on any other slider

6FAD41DC-99C9-4039-B21B-3485058BEC55.jpg

Mark, I like this jig, is it your own version of the Fritz and Franz? Do you have any more pics of it?

[Pat Rice]

I use 12” Forrest blades on my FELDER sliding tablesaw. I have the 48 tooth WW II and Forrest Duraline Hi-A/T 12” x 80 tooth blade for sheet goods. For ripping I also have a FELDER rip blade I purchased with my saw. I have the option to put on a scoring blade but have never purchased one for my saw as I am very pleased with the results from the Forrest Duraline Hi-A/T blade on plywood and even melamine

I made my own Fritz and Franz jig which has proven to be extremely useful. 42335470-1A27-4D6A-899F-5777BFE34826.jpg