For years I used an old Wards 10" radial arm saw that I bought in '83, and
it was old then. A couple of years ago I sold it, and this winter I got a
10" Delta (I'd love to get a 10" DeWalt but they are a little out of my
price range. Ok, a lot.). The Delta is a nice saw, lots of power and cast
iron, but it came with a really horrible combination tooth blade that might
be ok for chopping up framing lumber, but it makes a mess out of the back
face of plywood on crosscuts. Naturally, I HAD a really nice Freud thin
kerf crosscut blade that the local saw guy really tuned up for me, and it
went with the Wards saw....the only other appropriate blade I had was the
one in my chop saw, and it wasn't any better than the Delta blade. I had
planned to get a Forrest Chopmaster blade eventually, but since they run
about $110, I was going to wait a couple of months to let the Visa card
cool off from my little front end loader/backhoe project. Then yesterday
the weekly Horrible Freight advertising circular came (along with two
catalogs). Harbor Freight now sells 10" 60 and 80 tooth carbide crosscut
blades, and the 60T blade is on sale for $9.99. It's model number 38543,
and it's not listed as on sale on the web site, but it is in the flyer in
the store, and my store had a huge stack of the blades. I figured for ten
bucks why not, so I got one and tried it this evening. It's actually
pretty good. A LOT better than the Delta blade, which destroyed the back
face of 1/8" oak plywood. I got a little splintering on the back face, but
not much. It did pretty well on 5/4" solid oak stock also. The finished
cut wasn't polished like my hot rod Freud blade, but it was more than
acceptable. It's a keeper, and I wish I got it a week ago before I got
into my current nightstand project. I'm still going to eventually get the
Forrest blade, but it's not nearly as critical now. And, with a little
luck the 80T blade will be on sale for $12.00 next month.
Dave C
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