Cove Molding

[Luckbox]

I am going to make my own cove molding with a jig on my table saw. My question is would it be better to use a cross cut blade or a ripping blade. I am thinking ripping blade since there is more room between the teeth for the saw dust.

[pelligrini]

I did a couple cove cuts on some red oak to replicate some long curved drawer pulls on a chest I was restoring. From everything I read, more teeth and sharpness was recommended. I used a new 80T crosscut blade I had. The results turned out well. There was just a little sanding to remove the slight ridges. A foam sanding block shaped to your cove radius will help, especially if you're doing a lot.

The amount of sawdust won't be too much of an issue, as you will be doing multiple passes raising the blade just a bit each time. You can't hog it all out in just a couple passes since the cutters on your blade aren't that long.

[cabinetman]

You could use either, but a crosscut blade will leave a smoother surface. I've used 60T with good results. The depth of cuts are very small.
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[capncarl]

I have used the table saw to make several hundred lf of cove cuts for podiums and columns. The best results were with a new 60t freud blade. A lot of sanding was still required. All of my work was with #1 pine so a harder and better grade of wood should require less sanding. #2 pine and the lower grades required way too much sanding, so test your wood for the best results. For the finish I found that sanding the cove with a correct size sanding flapper wheel produced the best and quickest finish.
capncarl

[Sid]

I haven't done a lot of cove cutting, but I did do some tests comparing the result of the same cove cut in oak with an 80 tooth crosscut and a 24 tooth rip blade. There wasn't a lot of difference, but the rip blade left a slightly smoother surface.

I figure that since the work is going somewhat sideways through the blade, it is doing a scraping cut, and the flat-top rip teeth will scrape more smoothly than the beveled-top crosscut teeth. Think of scraping with a chisel compared to scraping with an awl.

On the other hand, having more teeth would mean the scrapes are closer together. Perhaps a combination blade with higher tooth count and some flat-top raker teeth (typically 1 in 5 teeth) would give the best of both effects. I didn't do a test with a combination blade.

Sid

[Luckbox]

Thanks for the help it looks like I am going to go witht he higher teeh count. I makes more sense, I was just wondering abuout the sawdut, but I guess since they are shallow cuts that it wont be as much as I am think in each pass.

[pelligrini]

There's not large amounts of sawdust, but it is pretty fine.

Sid- Good point on the FTG blades. I was wondering that myself. I just didn't have a decent shart one to try it out on. I noticed that if I did a slower feed on the stock the results were a little bit smoother.