Popular Woodworking 2004-11 № 144, страница 51

WOODWORKING

ESSENTIALS

BY NICK ENGLER

Using the Saw Blade

Your table saw is the central piece of machinery in your shop, and the blade (or more appropriately - blades) is a critical aspect of the ease and accuracy of your work. A top-quality blade mounted on a medium-quality saw will cut infinitely better than a mediocre blade mounted on the best table saw money can buy. The reason should be obvious - it's the blade, not the saw, that does the actual cutting.

How Blades Work

To choose a good blade, you need to understand a little about how blades are designed and how they work. Every blade has several important parts that are generic to all blades.

The plate is the steel center of the blade on which the teeth are mounted. The arbor hole is cut in the center of the plate, and that's where the blade mounts to the saw. The gullets are the

spaces between the teeth that allow dust to escape. Often there are anti-kickback limiters between the teeth and gullets, which reduce the chance of wood lodging in the gullet and being thrown at you. Expansion slots are cut along the perimeter of the blade to both quiet and stabilize the cut. And the teeth are the part of the blade that actually does the cutting, but there are lots of teeth variations and arrangements.

Saw-blade anatomy