7-1/4" bt3000 newbie

[badbert]

Point taken blade guard going back on first thing in the morning! It has been a long time since I did any serious woodworking. I attended a school district that was lucky enough to have shop classes as early as 7th grade. So I took woodshop from 7th thru graduation. I built dozens of projects. Having to master every tool from TS to Lathe. I even took two semesters of advance laminating. We made recurve bows and plywood furniture. So yeah it has been a while (30+ years) since I used a fine piece of wood equipment. But I can appreciate the edge this little blade makes.
I am not gonna give you the whole sob story. About being medically retired. Losing my home to fire, buying a hud home for my family, not being able to afford to replace the missing cabinets, hoping to be able to build a beautiful kitchen on a non-existent budget... etc. Eventually I will purchase a really good blade. And I covet the Freud Diabloes. But for right now, this awesome little saw and this little $5 blade will help us make a beautiful kitchen my family will enjoy for generations! I just wanted to make sure there weren't some unforseen problems with using this blade.

[badbert]

Thought i would post a link to the blade I am using

http://www.homedepot.com/Avanti-Pro/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ4qv/R-202035226/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

[chopnhack]

Interesting, it says carbide reinforced on the info sheet on HD website.. where would the carbide be hiding?

[LCHIEN]

Interesting, it says carbide reinforced on the info sheet on HD website.. where would the carbide be hiding?

in blades and other cutting tools it's commonly considered that "carbide" blades use tungsten carbide inserts on steel teeth for cutting edges.

However there are many carbide compounds, silicon carbide and titanium carbide, for example, used in composite material as reinforcement for added strength. Commonly these are referred to as silicon carbide reinforcement and is often shortened to just "carbide reinforcement". I imagine there's no tungsten carbide in these blades, perhaps the carbide refers to one of the other reinforcing agents. Although i'm still not sure where in a blade composites wold be hiding. Certainly the picture is that of a HSS blade with no tungsten carbide tips.

[badbert]

in blades and other cutting tools it's commonly considered that "carbide" blades use tungsten carbide inserts on steel teeth for cutting edges.

However there are many carbide compounds, silicon carbide and titanium carbide, for example, used in composite material as reinforcement for added strength. Commonly these are referred to as silicon carbide reinforcement and is often shortened to just "carbide reinforcement". I imagine there's no tungsten carbide in these blades, perhaps the carbide refers to one of the other reinforcing agents. Although i'm still not sure where in a blade composites wold be hiding. Certainly the picture is that of a HSS blade with no tungsten carbide tips.

Thanks for clearing that up! I wondered why it said carbide but the teeth obviously are not.

[Ed62]

Point taken blade guard going back on first thing in the morning!

Good call. Be aware that it's a bit of a pain to remove and reinstall that on the BT3K, so many people just don't do it after having to remove it to use a dado blade or other operations that require you to take it off. Some are sorry they didn't take the time to do that. Don't join that crowd. It takes discipline to put it back on every time, and there is a very good alternative available, called the Shark Guard. Easy to put on and remove. You can do a search on this site for more info.

If you haven't seen the articles on the BT3K, there's a lot of info available to you. Here's a link to it http://www.bt3central.com/index.php?page=articles .

Ed

[vaking]

Hollow ground blade with high tooth count is made for plywood. BT3 with 10" blade can rip 3.5" thick wood. Replacing 10" blade with 7" will reduce maximum depth of cut to about 1.5".
If you only need to cut plywood and you are using rip fence to guide the material - 7" blade will do a good job. People often use cross-cutting sled to cut plywood on a table saw. With a sled 7" blade may become marginal. 3/4" thickness of a sled and 3/4" thickness of plywood make 1.5" - maximum depth of cut on a 7" blade. Even though the blade will cut but gullets (holes between teeth) might not clear the material, dust collection may suffer and blade may start burning.