4 Quick Tips for Buying Circular Saw Blades
Make & Design
The basic form for all blades is its circular shape, which is cut from a piece of plate steel before being heat treated. However, the defining factor of quality is whether or not your blade body is tensioned. A tensioning operation will form a slight but noticeable ring in the blank between the arbor hole for the saw arbor and the teeth. This operation promotes balance and true running while mounted to your saw. Other operations such as noise reduction slots are a bonus, especially if you are running the blade for longer periods.
Tooth Count
You probably already know that tooth count is important. When choosing blades, you’ll want to weigh these three factors: the material you’re building with, the finish quality you want, and your budget for this build. It’s recommended that you have multiple blades — one of each type of tooth count as listed below — as the different tooth counts serve different purposes. The following is a good guide for tooth count:
Less than 30T = Rougher (rip) cuts
Between 40 to 50T = Combination cuts
Greater than 60T = Crosscuts
Tooth Geometry
The teeth on your blade do the cutting — and like any cutting tool, their design is critical to performance and finish. When you use a blade that not only has the right number of teeth, but also has the correct geometry will give you the results you need in terms of quality and speed. There are about a half-dozen common grinds that fit a wide variety of jobs, the type of cut to the type of material you’re cutting. Most blade packaging has recommendations for blade use. Just match the blade to the material you’re using.
Hook Angle
You might ask: what is a hook angle, and why it is important? This angle is essentially how aggressively the blade tooth is presented to the material — with the aggressiveness increasing as the angles get larger. For instance, a more aggressive hook angle (20 degrees) on ripping blades helps you break down materials faster, while blades designed for high-end sheet goods or non-ferrous metals have a more sedate blade angle (5 degrees to 0 degrees, respectively). This slows the cutting action slightly and produces a finer finish.