Saw Blade Essentials
Most saw blades are designed to do their best work in a certain type of cutting operation.
There are blades designed for ripping lumber, crosscutting lumber, cutting veneered
plywood and panels, cutting laminates and plastics, cutting melamine, and cutting non-
ferrous metals. There are also "general purpose" and "combination" blades, which are
designed to work well in two or more types of cut. What a blade does best is determined by
the number of teeth, the type of gullet, the tooth configuration and the hook angle (angle of
the tooth).
Number of Teeth
In general, blades with more teeth yield a smoother cut, and blades with fewer teeth move
material faster. A 10' blade designed for ripping lumber, for
example, usually has as few as 24 teeth, and is designed
quickly move material along the length of the grain. A rip
blade isn't designed to yield a mirror-smooth cut, but a good rip blade will move through
hardwood with little effort and leave a clean cut with a minimum of scoring.
A crosscut blade, on the other hand, is designed to give you a smooth cut across the grain
of the wood, without any splintering or tearing of the material. A crosscut blade will usually
have from 60 to 80 teeth. Here, more teeth mean that each tooth has to move less
material. A crosscut blade makes many more individual cuts as it moves through the stock
than a ripping blade. The result is a cleaner cut on edges and a smoother cut surface. With
a top-quality crosscut blade, the cut surface will appear polished.
Gullet
The gullet is the space cut away from the blade plate in front of each tooth to allow for chip
removal. In a ripping operation, the feed rate is faster than in crosscutting and the chip size
is bigger, so the gullet needs to be deep enough to make room for the large amount of
material it has to handle. In a crosscutting blade the chips are smaller and fewer per tooth,
so the gullet is much smaller. The gullets on some crosscutting blades are purposely sized
small to inhibit a too-fast feed rate, which can be a problem, especially on radial arm and
sliding miter saws.
The gullets of a combination blade are designed to
handle both ripping and crosscutting. The large gullets
between the groups of teeth help clear out the larger
amounts of material generated in ripping. The smaller
gullets between the grouped teeth inhibit a too-fast feed
rate in crosscutting.
Tooth Configuration
The shape of the saw blade tooth and the way the teeth are grouped also affect the way the
blade cuts. The configuration of the teeth on a saw blade has a lot to do with whether the
blade will work best for ripping, crosscutting, or laminates.
Flat Top (FT) Flat top teeth are used on blades made for ripping hard and soft
woods. Since wood is much less likely to chip and splinter when it is being cut in
the direction of the grain, the focus of a rip blade is to quickly and efficiently
remove material. The flat top tooth is the most efficient design for cutting and
raking material out of the cut.
Alternate Top Bevel (ATB) "Alternate top bevel" means that the saw blade
teeth alternate between a right and left hand bevel. This tooth configuration
gives a smoother cut when crosscutting natural woods and veneered plywood.
The alternating beveled teeth form a knife-like edge on either side of the blade
and make a cleaner cut than flat top teeth.
Combination Tooth (Comb.) The combination (4&1) configuration is used for
"combination" blades -- blades designed to do both crosscutting and ripping. The
teeth are arranged in groups of five - four ATB teeth and one FT -- with a large
gullet in between the groups.
Triple Chip Grind (TCG) The TCG configuration excels at cutting hard materials
like laminates, MDF, and plastics. Teeth alternate between a flat raking tooth
and a higher "trapeze" tooth. The TCG configuration is also used for non-ferrous
metal cutting blades.
High Alternate Top Bevel (HiATB) The HiATB configuration is used for extra-
fine crosscutting and to cut materials surfaced with melamine, which is prone to
chipping. The high bevel angle increases the knife-like action at the edge of the
blade.
Hook Angle
On most saw blades, the tooth faces are tipped either toward
or away from the direction of rotation of the blade, rather than
being perfectly in line with the center of the blade. Hook angle
is the angle formed between the tooth face and a line drawn
from the center of the blade across the tip of the tooth. On a
blade with a positive hook angle, the teeth are tipped toward
the direction of the blade's rotation. A negative hook angle
means that teeth tip away from the direction of rotation, and a
zero degree hook angle means that the teeth are in line with
the center of the blade.
Hook angle affects blade operation in important ways. A blade
with high positive hook angle (+20 degrees is a high hook
angle) will have a very aggressive cut and a fast feed rate. A
low or negative hook angle will slow the feed rate and will also
inhibit the blade's tendency to "climb" the material being cut.
A blade for ripping lumber on a table saw will generally have a high hook angle, where an
aggressive, fast cut is usually what you want. Radial arms saws and sliding compound miter
saws, on the other hand, require a blade with a very low or negative hook angle, to inhibit
overly fast feed rate, binding, and the blade's tendency to try to "climb" the material.
Kerf Width and Plate Thickness
The width of the "kerf" -- the slot the blade cuts in the material - is another important
consideration. Most obviously, the kerf width determines the amount of material that is
expended in the cutting process. But kerf width isn't just a matter of economics. The size of
the kerf is determined in part by the thickness of the blade plate, and a solid, reliable blade
plate is one of the features of a good saw blade.
