MacAllister table saw and blade diameter

[craiggers]

Hi,

I bought the £149 Macallister table/mitre saw from B&Q.

I note that most of the 250mm blades available have 3mm wide teeth. Do the number of teeth matter more that the thickness of teeth when cutting delicate wood (e.g. chair/dado railing)?

Is it possible to use a blade with a smaller diameter with these type of saws (the intructions don't say), in order to reduce the tooth thickness.

thanks

Craig

 

[Jasonb]

The number of teeth affect the finish the most along with the top angle the tooth is ground to. For cross cutting use at least 48teeth.

A narrow kerf blade will put less load on the saw when ripping (cutting in the direction of the grain) and less teeth are better for this around 24T will be OK.

The thing to watch if you go for a narrow kerf is that the blade needs to be about 0.2-0.3mm thicker than the riving knife otherwise the wood will stick.

Keep to the 250mm diameter as it will affect the width you can cut with it in mitre mode and the gap between riving knife & blade will be too big when used as a table saw.

Jason