Good Table Saw Blade

[museumguy]

Once you start collecting blades, you'll need a nice storage space for them,

[Hank Knight]

Steve,

The current issue of Fine Woodworking (April 2018) has a review of combination blades. They rated Forest Woodworker II as "Best Overall" and the Freud Premier Fusion combination blade as "Best Overall" and "Best Buy." They found virtually no performance difference between the Forest blade and the Freud Fusion blade. The Forest blade costs around $150 and the Freud cost about $99, hence FWW's "Best Buy" designation. I have both blades. I don't see any difference in performance between the two.. Both do a good job for a compromise blade. If you're cutting melamine or some other special needs stuff, you might want to look at dedicated purpose blades. I keep my combination blades on my saws 90% of the time and they do pretty much everything I need. One point that may be of interest: Forest sharpens their own blades (and any others you send to them). Freud doesn't; they publish a list of recommended sharpeners for their blades. I called both of the ones listed for South Carolina, where I live. One was out of business and the other had never heard of a "Premier Fusion" blade. The Fusion blade has a special proprietary grind. I figured If the sharpener had never heard of it, he probably didn't know how to sharpen it. I now have a nice blade that needs sharpening.

My $.02.

Hank

[joespehar]

Steve,

The current issue of Fine Woodworking (April 2018) has a review of combination blades. They rated Forest Woodworker II as "Best Overall" and the Freud Premier Fusion combination blade as "Best Overall" and "Best Buy." They found virtually no performance difference between there Forest blade and the Freud Fusion blade. The Forest blade costs around $150 and the Freud cost about $99, hence FWW's "Best Buy" designation. I have both blades. I don't see any difference in performance between the two.. Both do a good job for a compromise blade. If you're cutting melamine or some other special needs stuff, you might want to look at dedicated purpose blades. I keep my combination blades on my saws 90% of the time and they do pretty much everything I need. One point that may be of interest: Forest sharpens their own blades (and any others you send to them). Freud doesn't; they publish a list of  recommended sharpeners for their blades. I called both of the ones listed for South Carolina, where I live. One was out of business and the other had never heard of a "Premier Fusion" blade. The Fusion blade has a special proprietary grind. I figured If the sharpener had never heard of it, he probably didn't know how to sharpen it. I now have a nice blade that needs sharpening.

My $.02.

Hank

Check with Dynamic Saw in Buffalo, NY.   They probably know how to sharpen the Freud Fusion.  I have a lot of blades.  I use the 40-tooth WWII the most.  I also like the Freud Fusion, but it seems to lose its sharpness faster than the WWII.  There are also other excellent blades:  Ridge Carbide, Tenryu, even a couple DeWalt brand blades.  Amazingly enough, even one of my $10 Harbor Freight blades does an quite acceptable job for many cuts, although I wouldn't use it for fine furniture making.  Freud rip blades are excellent, and the WWII 40-tooth works very well for glue-line rips in wood up to one inch thick.  The 30-tooth WWII cross cuts pretty well and rips very well in wood 1 1/2" thick or maybe thicker.  Forrest also makes an excellent blade for plywood.  Other makers may also.

[Hank Knight]

Check with Dynamic Saw in Buffalo, NY.   They probably know how to sharpen the Freud Fusion. 

Thanks for the tip. I'll give them a try.

[CARYinWA]

I have a stack of these that reside on my saw 90% of the time.  I have several other specific blades like an Onsrud  80 tooth crosscut and 24 tooth ripping.  I have a WWII that gets used when others get dull

[Johnbro]

Steve,

The current issue of Fine Woodworking (April 2018) has a review of combination blades. They rated Forest Woodworker II as "Best Overall" and the Freud Premier Fusion combination blade as "Best Overall" and "Best Buy." They found virtually no performance difference between the Forest blade and the Freud Fusion blade. The Forest blade costs around $150 and the Freud cost about $99, hence FWW's "Best Buy" designation. I have both blades. I don't see any difference in performance between the two.. Both do a good job for a compromise blade. If you're cutting melamine or some other special needs stuff, you might want to look at dedicated purpose blades. I keep my combination blades on my saws 90% of the time and they do pretty much everything I need. One point that may be of interest: Forest sharpens their own blades (and any others you send to them). Freud doesn't; they publish a list of  recommended sharpeners for their blades. I called both of the ones listed for South Carolina, where I live. One was out of business and the other had never heard of a "Premier Fusion" blade. The Fusion blade has a special proprietary grind. I figured If the sharpener had never heard of it, he probably didn't know how to sharpen it. I now have a nice blade that needs sharpening.

My $.02.

Hank

Plus 1 on WWII and Freud Fusion--both are great general purpose blades, and I can't seen any difference between them in terms of quality or ease of cut. I have a few more blades to augment those two: a FTG for cutting miter spline slots (no bat ears), a Freud TK rip blade (left over from my first TS and it works fine for ripping--just have to adjust the fence for the difference in size) and the newest, a Freud plywood/melamine blade which is superior for cutting ply compared to the Fusion or WWII--virtually no blow out.

[Kansas City Fireslayer]

Forrest WWII. Rip, crosscut....I never take it off unless I’m cutting junk wood or need to dado.

[knotscott]

The best brands for hobby work I've used are Infinity, Ridge Carbide, Forrest, Freud Industrial, and Tenryu Gold Medal, with Infinity impressing me more than any other.  What to get depends a lot on what you cut and what results you want.  Tips for picking saw blades

The plywood blades with the lowest tearout will have a Hi-ATB grind, which means it'll also be excellent for fine crosscuts.  So if you have or are getting a good 80T Hi-ATB blade, something like the Forrest 30T WWII should fill the remaining gap pretty nicely, because it'll cover most of the cutting needs really well, except for fine crosscuts.  Using a 30T GLR or 40T to 50T GP/combo blade still leaves you with a gap for thicker ripping, so if you go that route I'd suggest adding a good 24T bulk ripper.

[museumguy]

I just showed something to a coworker yesterday. In the store at work, we sell Freud and Irwin blades. He was restocking the Irwin blades and I said something about the cheaper blades. I showed him how the cheaper blades have smaller carbide tips. That's 1 reason why the better blades cost a little more.

[Gary G™]

Stehle
Best blade value I’ve ever bought.
Great quality.
Check this:
http://www.weaver-sales.com/weaver-saw-blades.htm