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Some job site saw blade advice

690 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by knotscott, May 19, 2022

kdeboy

Discussion Starter · May 18, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

I've never really liked my job site saw. Didn't cut plywood that well, same with dimensional construction lumber so it's basically been collecting dust in my garage for the last 4 or 5 years. Today I needed to trim a glued up chunk of red oak for a Moxon vise I'm making so I drug the saw out to my patio. HORRIBLE. Got about halfway through the cut and the piece got stuck. Checked blade and fence alignment, they were good so wth???

Spent a couple hours reading through saw blade reviews. Lots of good info but I'm impatient so I went to HD and got an inexpensive Diablo 24T rip blade and stuck it in. Night and day, went through the wood like butter. Didn't even feel any resistance while cutting. So my advise on job site saws, at least if it's a Bosch 4100, is replace the blade it comes with as soon as possible. $30 and it turned mine into something that I never used b/c it was no fun into something that was actually enjoyable to use. The dark side is from the attempted cut with the barely used factory blade, the light side is the same piece of wood with the Diablo blade cut.

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controlfreak

· #2 · May 18, 2022

A good blade is well worth the money and if you want to splurge get a good dedicated rip blade too.

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tvrgeek

· #3 · May 18, 2022

A job-site is one of the places a thin kerf combo blade is OK. Won't work quite as well ripping that oak you show as the rip blade you got, but "convenient" For framing, the rip does a better job of crosscut than a crosscut does in rip. If you are doing trim, might think about a combo blade. Or do you just use a miter saw for crosscuts, in which ripping or chewing rough through plywood, rip is a good choice on the TS.

Diablo for throw away, CMT for my go-to. My preference.

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rwe2156

· #4 · May 19, 2022 (Edited by Moderator)

A job-site is one of the places a thin kerf combo blade is OK. Won t work quite as well ripping that oak you show as the rip blade you got, but "convenient" For framing, the rip does a better job of crosscut than a crosscut does in rip. If you are doing trim, might think about a combo blade. Or do you just use a miter saw for crosscuts, in which ripping or chewing rough through plywood, rip is a good choice on the TS.

Diablo for throw away, CMT for my go-to. My preference.

- tvrgeek

+1 on all of this ^^. The commercial Freud blades are worth sharpening.

You've GOT to keep a sharp blade on a low power machine.