Harbor Freight Saw Blade

[Jim Frye]

The fireplace project required cutting the thin brick to length and I don't have a tile saw and wasn't in the mood to rent one. Harbor Freight sells a 5" wet/dry diamond saw blade for $18. It has a 5/8" arbor hole, so I picked up a saw blade bushing kit from Menards for $12. This allowed me to mount the blade on my 30 year old Ryobi 18 volt cordless saw. The blade cut flawlessly all through the project, but was a real dust maker. I did all of the cuts outdoors so the dust blew away in the wind. Good value the blade is.

[leehljp]

I bought a HF 10" blade some years ago, and after using it a couple of times took it off and used an older used blade. I have been skeptical of using a HF wood cutting blade since. However, you used a diamond blade for tile/bricks. I have used one of those with good results.

[capncarl]

Bushing kit cost $12? For $6 more HF sells a 5” grinder that this Diamond blade fits and gets a deeper cut than s circular saw. I keep a Diamond blade in an old Black/Decker grinder just for cutting bricks and concrete pavers, figuring that it wouldn’t last a year. I think it is on year 18 now.

[capncarl]

Harbor Freight has an angle grinder that handles that concrete blade on sale today and tomorrow for $10. It’s not a Metabo or Bosch, but you wouldn’t want to run a concrete blade in one of those anyway!

[dbhost]

My HF wood cutting blade experience was just dreadful in the past. I would have been better off cutting the board by smashing it with a claw hammer. So I have been skeptical of any spinning cutting tools fo theirs for a while...

Then I ended up using their bimetal hole saws and was actually impressed. Not perfect by any means, but nice clean holes without a lot of effort...

Then, this past spring I ended up buying one of their Bauer trim routers, and it was on a coupon and more or less got the Bauer 15pc 1/4" router bit set ($40.00 normally) for something stupid cheap that I couldn't pass up like $10.00.

Are they as good as my MLCS bits?

Nope.

But they are on par with the Craftsman bit set I had years ago that I sold to a friend of mine when I went with 1/2"

So far VERY impressed. Not super great, but not scary bad either... A great value.

[LCHIEN]

Well, MLCS is no longer... part of HValley but I don't know if their quality or supply line has changed.
I do know that their service has declined, used to be I could ask questions of MLCS and get quick and useful answers and even replacement parts if I complained,
but I have never had any of several queries to HValley answered or even acknowledged.

I miss the MLCS technical manual - had a lot of application expertise in it.

I asked several times it if was still available but they never responded.

Here is the last one I got years back.
MLCS Technical_Manual 14th ed 2011.pdf
If anyone has a newer Edition I'd like to have it.

[JamesDean19]

Any experience with Qsaw blades anyone?

[LCHIEN]

Qsaw is a metal cutting circular saw blade.