Blade selection for new Sawstop PCS - Ridge Carbide

[glenn bradley]

I take concerns about coatings and depth shoulders with a grain of salt. More of a CYA than anything IMHO. I have never seen any extensive testing with millisecond results tables published for coated vs. bare or shouldered vs. not; maybe they exist. I run Carbide Processors but Ridge, Forrest and many others make good quality blades. I run a Freud (with coating) as my 40T general purpose blade on my PCS. The prices at Silvers Mills on Forrest certainly make them competitive.

If you are looking for a "get this" answer you may be dissatisfied. We all tend to gravitate to the things that work well for us. You will certainly get a short list of makers to choose from and you don't have to get all blades from one source. I run a lot of jigs and use the tablesaw as a joinery machine quite a bit. This led me to have my blades made to .125" kerf if they weren't already. This was simply to avoid having to reset things when changing from rip to crosscut, etc.

An important thing to remember is that cutters are wear parts like the brakes on your car. At some point they need attention or replacement. I have a couple of rip, general, and crosscut but acquired the duplicates over the years. Quality blades can be re-sharpened many times. The way I look at it is that for $20 I get a "new" $100 blade about a half a dozen times. Makes the high price level out pretty quick.

[Cliff Polubinsky]

I believe I've seen Sawstop say there is no problem with coated blades. I can understand the issue with shoulders since they could limit how far the teeth penetrate the brake and therefore how quickly it stops. Which would result in more injury to the hand.

Cliff

[Holmes Anderson]

At the risk of stirring the pot, why the obsession with high-end combo and rip blades? I understand the need for a high quality laminate blade because that is the last cut before banding, but solid wood rip surfaces require hand planing or sanding anyway so why not use a combo or rip blade that leaves a surface just good enough to be easily hand-planed or sanded? I used WW2 for years but started using a CMT combo blade while a Forrest was being sharpened and realized I wasn't really benefiting from the WW2 because I was finishing with a hand plane anyway.

And while we're on the subject of blades, I've noticed that many contributors favor a table saw over a miter saw for crosscuts but for me the crosscut blade on the miter saw cuts much cleaner than a combo blade (including a WW2) on a table saw so I favor my non-sliding miter with a proper crosscut blade. A crosscut or laminate blade in the table saw would leave a clean cut but wouldn't justify the effort of a blade change if the miter saw could do the same cut.

[Jim Becker]

At the risk of stirring the pot, why the obsession with high-end combo and rip blades? I understand the need for a high quality laminate blade because that is the last cut before banding, but solid wood rip surfaces require hand planing or sanding anyway so why not use a combo or rip blade that leaves a surface just good enough to be easily hand-planed or sanded? I used WW2 for years but started using a CMT combo blade while a Forrest was being sharpened and realized I wasn't really benefiting from the WW2 because I was finishing with a hand plane anyway.

It comes down to "different strokes for different folks", Holmes. I happen to like that my original two WW-II blades were still going strong after nearly 20 years and are still going strong with their new owner a few years after that. The only reason I sold them was they were replaced with 12" versions which were more appropriate for my saw. It's not just about quality of cut, but also long term value for the particular individual. But around cut quality, you'll likely find that most folks are not pulling out hand planes, either because they don't enjoy it or because they don't even own them. (I don't use my CMS in the shop for critical crosscutting as I do that on my sliding table saw)

[Michael Burnside]

As far as CMS vs. tablesaw, I'm with Jim in that I prefer the table saw for accurate crosscuts (well sort of LOL since I don't use a slider - I'm not nearly as cool as Jim ). I use the CMS or jigsaw for rough dimensioning and then tablesaw for everything else, which is why I spend the 30 seconds it takes to install a high-tooth count crosscut or ripping blade and rarely use my combo for anything other than rough rips or "shop" furniture stuff where I don't want to wear my two main blades. IMHO the tablesaw produces a better cut and I've got my saw dialed in to perfection so it's my main go-to.