I’m in the market for a new Ridge carbide 24 FTG rip blade and wondering if it will be able to do double duty for cutting 1/8in splines for things like boxes and picture frames or if I will need to get their joinery blade as well.
Does anyone have experience with these two types of blades? From what I’ve read some people use rip blades for this purpose while others say it would be too course and cause tear out. Wondering if I could save a few bucks or if it would be worth while having the two blades.
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What size is your table saw. At the risk of creating controversy, I will state that since upgrading to a 3hp cabinet saw I am only using the 40 tooth Forrest WW blades.
It's a 3HP. It works well with a 40 tooth blade, but I was hoping for smoother cuts on tapered legs and also less resistance when cutting 8/4 stock.
I also want a flat groove for splines...
I have the Carbide rip blade and do not see significant tear out. If worried about tear out, back up the cut with a backer board. I do much more ripping that spline cuts so it is something I work around. Tape some times works on the exit cut. Another thing I did with spline cuts on miter joints for a small table was to trim off the excess spline and remove any tear out by adding a spacer (for the first two cuts) between the top and rip fence then run it through to get a nice clean surface and flush looking spline joint. And if there was a nasty surprise tiny gap after the trim, a wedge and glue and sand paper makes everything look good.
Personally I wouldn't pay a premium for a standard rip blade they are all ground the same and tear out is going to be an issue with all of them.
I think the best way to handle tear out is to use a backer but also leave the material wide or thick enough to plane off any minor tear out.
I also do this for dados. Tape has never worked very well for me.
I use a Dimar 24T FTG with chip limitation (D1024CL) exclusively for splines in boxes and picture frames. I have used this blade for regular ripping duties but it works so well for splines that it is now reserved for that purpose.
I do runs of 30 small boxes, or 360 splines, then clean it up or resharpen if necessary. Virtually no issues with tear out using the typical woods, cherry, walnut, maple, oak etc...
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