Make Your Table Saw Work Best with SawStop Blades

Outfit Your Table Saw With The Right Blade For Every Cut From Our Lineup

Contrary to a common belief, no single table saw blade works best for every cut. A lot of table saw users tend to use one general purpose or combination blade for ripping, crosscutting, miter cutting, and any other cut. Granted, there are many very good blades in this category, but they still cannot beat using the optimum blade for each cutting application. That’s why every woodworker should own multiple types of blades.

Blades sell in a variety of diameters, with 10” being the most common for saws used in home workshops and jobsites. A blade’s kerf measures the thickness of the teeth, and thus the width of the cut. Blades labeled as being “full kerf” usually have a 1/8” kerf (.125”). Thinner-kerf blades are available in multiple thicknesses. Use the blades that work best for your table saw.

The Blades Every Woodworker Should Own

• Rip blade
• General purpose or combination blade
• Crosscutting blade
• Plywood/melamine blade
• Stacked dado set

Let’s take a closer look at each type of blade.

Rip blade: Most rip blades have 24 teeth, but some have as many as 30, with deep gullets between the teeth for effective sawdust removal. The teeth are typically flat-tipped, though not always. Use a rip blade when cutting hardwood and softwood along the grain. Using this type of blade puts the least amount of strain on the motor and arbor. SawStop sells a 10” 24-tooth rip blade (BTS-R-24ATB) with a .118” kerf.

General purpose/combination blades: These are really two different types of blades. General purpose blades typically have 40 teeth arranged in an alternate top bevel (ATB) configuration, meaning the teeth alternate with beveled edges that point left, right, left, right, etc. A combination blade has 50 teeth arranged in 10 groups in the following order: left, right, left, right ATB teeth followed by a single flat-tipped tooth. A deeper gullet follows the flat tooth.

Both of these blades work well. A general purpose blade typically cuts cleaner and with less effort on rip cuts, while the combination blade handles crosscuts better. But the differences are not significant. SawStop makes two blades in this category: a 10” 40-tooth blade (CNS-07-148) with a .118” kerf, and a premium 10” 40-tooth blade with a Titanium coating and 1/8” kerf (BTS-R-40ATB).

Crosscutting blade: As the name suggests, this blade is made for cutting across the grain in hardwood and softwood, as well as for making miter cuts. These blades have 60 or 80 teeth in 10” diameters with teeth arranged in an ATB configuration. SawStop makes two blades in this category. The first is a 60-tooth 10” blade with a .118” kerf and a 10° top angle. SawStop’s other blade is a premium Titanium-coated model with 80 teeth in an ATB pattern, 1/8” kerf, and a 40° top angle.

Plywood/melamine blade: If you’ve ever cut veneered plywood or melamine-coated particleboard, you know how fragile and delicate those surfaces can be and how prone to tear-out they can be. A blade made specifically to cut these materials eliminates those tear-out issues, leaving you with clean edges for the project you’re building. The sharp top angle on SawStop’s Titanium 80-tooth blade also makes it excel at cutting these sheet goods prone to tear-out.

Stacked dado set: If you cut any dadoes, grooves, rabbets, half-laps, box joints, or any other cut wider than a single blade, you know the advantage of being able to make those cuts in one pass on the table saw. That’s where a dado set excels. This set comes with two outer blades, usually with 24 teeth; one blade outfitted with left-pointing teeth and the other pointing to the right. Use them together to create a cut about ¼” wide, or add any combination of the chipper blades in between them to make a cut up to as much as 29/32” wide. Most sets come with thin shims to add space between blades to micro-adjust the width for a perfect fit.

SawStop’s Premium Dado Set (BTS-DS8-2402) comes with two 24-tooth outer blades, five chippers in four widths, six shims, and a sturdy carrying case.

Most blades can be resharpened multiple times, but keep extras of these blades on hand to avoid down time while the blades are out for sharpening.

TIP!  Keep your blades clean by using a blade-cleaning solution to remove pitch and resin buildup, keeping the blade at its utmost operating condition.