Stu's Shed

Intended purpose: Ripping
Tooth count: 24
Price: $29
Source: Northwood Tools

Tooth Grind: ATB (alternating top bevel)
Kerf: 2.87 – 3.21mm measured (range because different teeth had different thicknesses)
Carbide thickness (measured front face to braze): 2.28mm
Carbide length: 6.67mm
Front face length: 4.3mm

Blade axial runout: 0.006″ (0.15mm)
Expansion slots: 4, straight design with copper dampener
Anti-noise slots: none

Blade body thickness: 2.22mm

A wide, negative angled expansion slot which ends in a large slot arrestor which is filled with a copper vibration absorber. I can’t be sure that it is specifically for vibration absorption however, it could be simple because of the size of the hole that the blade would whistle during use without it, so in that respect it could be regarded as a noise dampener. One benefit of copper in this application is it expands faster and to a greater degree than the parent metal, so when the blade heats up, the copper insert won’t become loose and dislodge.

General Description:

This blade is sold by Northwood Tools as a budget quality blade. It has relatively small carbide tips to keep the cost down, with a design concept that the blades are replaced when they dull rather than be resharpened.

The blade has the anti-kickback backing behind the tooth tip – designed to control and limit the maximum material feedrate, and provide extra tooth support.

An average amount of force was required to feed material through for all cuts, including the rips.

The blade is provided with three bore reducing rings (machined rather than pressed), and this includes one for 5/8″ and another for 16mm. This is a bit unusual – these are often considered one in the same, but this is not actually the case, so it was good to be able to choose between the two to find the one that fitted best.

Bottom line is, this blade performed averagely, but it has the distinct advantage that it is 1/2 to 1/3 the price of other ripping blades.

The cuts:

Melamine (Particle Board Backing)

Top Edge

A pretty acceptable top surface with only a few minor chips along the length. Melamine is chosen btw, as if a blade is going to have a tendency to chip, this material will show it up. For a ripping blade, this is pretty good.

Bottom Edge

There is a moderate amount of tearout from the bottom surface. This blade isn’t designed, nor suitable for melamine cutting.

KD Hardwood Rip

This was quite a difficult rip, and that is reflected in the quality of the finish. With the images of the other material rips, along with the measurements of the tooth widths, I’m surmising that with different teeth cutting wider and narrower that some are having to work harder, and therefore not all teeth are cutting optimally.

Treated Pine Rip

A finer cut than the hardwood, however some tearout is evident in the photo.

Softwood (Pine) Rip

Again, as discussed in the hardwood rip, the surface is quite rough, and although this is more normal for low tooth count ripping blades, this blade also took extra effort to feed.

KD Hardwood Crosscut

This wasn’t too bad an effort by a ripping blade to crosscut. There is some tearout / roughing of the surface and significant back-edge breakout, but again, this is actually a ripping blade.

Closeup of tearout on hardwood crosscut

There was pretty significant tearout / feathering of the backedge fibres.

Treated Pine Crosscut

The treated pine crosscut was a demonstration of why ripping blades are not used for crosscutting. Funnily enough however, there is basically no fibre tearout at the back edge.

Softwood (Pine) Crosscut

The softwood crosscut again was a demonstration of why a ripping blade isn’t used for crosscutting. Significant tearout, and breakout from the trailing edge

Overall, this blade did an ok job, and considering that for the price of some of the other blades you can get an entire set of rip, crosscut and combination (budget) premium blades, they are certainly a range to consider if your budget is limited.