circular saw blades advice needed

[chunkolini]

work is still quiet so I have gone mad and ripped my stairs to pieces
What a laugh, a creaky step at the top, ages ago I screwed a couple of bits of steel strip as a temporary fix.
Two days ago I took them off and the whole step collapsed into a chasm of misery.
I confess I did resort to blasphemy regarding the sex lives of nuns
the step was hanging from a few rusted out nails and held up by a stick wedged in from below.

This has all been repaired and rendered sound.
Plan A was buy in some oak planking and do it myself cladding the whole staircase.
Too pricey so I bought in a kit of treads and risers in oak to do it myself. Cheaper and a lot less work
All I need to do is trim the steps to length and take a few mm of the backs of the treads and risers.
I have a pair of decent circular and compound mitre saws for the job. Both have very tired blades. Mitre saw for the cross cuts and circular for the rip cuts.
the wood is a kind of oak blockboard 20mm thick for the treads and ten mm plywood in effect for the risers. see picture below

I have a clamp on saw guide for the long cuts.
So blades? how many teeth and will the same blade be ok ripping solid oak and thin ply? for the mitre saw?
I imagine that cheap blades are a waste of money. Ideally Id like to get them from skrewfix if possible as there is one just down the road.
Any advice much appreciated as this is a bit of a spendy mission.
Thank you

 

[bourbon]

Trend. as many teeth as you can get in the size. 60 is better than 40. Don't forget the bore size.

 

[brightspark]

i have a few of these https://www.norfolksawservices.co.uk/products/blades-and-tooling/circular-saw-blades/wood/freud-pro get a general purpose blade for rip and crosscut

 

[RobCox]

I beg to differ. For rip cutting the blade has fewer teeth to give a deeper gullet for chip clearance.

 

[chunkolini]

bore size? ive done that before.
I will check carefully

 

[chunkolini]

Ideally I want to be using one blade for both types of wood on the rip cuts, not sure if that is practical given types involved.
but if I have to, I could do four steps at a time and swap

 

[mike os]

You are cutting so few that using the rip as the crosscut will be fine

Large tooth count, and about 5 deg rake , probably 60 tooth or so

I used relatively cheap blades ... trend, Saxon, only used premium blades for "essential " cuts

 

[dobbslc]

I've used Saxton blades and they seem decent.
I've cut a fair bit of oak, use a dust mask as it gets right up your snout!

 

[chunkolini]

I'll be crosscutting with the mitre saw and the long, well 800mm rip cuts with the hand held circular saw.

 

[brightspark]

I've used Saxton blades and they seem decent.
I've cut a fair bit of oak, use a dust mask as it gets right up your snout!

and its carcinogenic

 

[dobbslc]

I've found rip cuts in oak to be hard going on a blade, maybe my blade wasn't the right one. Take it easy and left the blade do the work don't force it.

 

[dobbslc]

2" thick might be why it was hard going

 

[Bsmith]

I'm no woodworker but I do use wood sometimes, I have a couple of hand held circular saws and I find when cutting that they leave a cleaner edge (less chips or rags) when the blade is set at a height that only cuts through the wood, like if cutting 1" thick set the blade to about 1+1/8" deep.
Dewalt TCT blades are great.

 

[chunkolini]

That's what I was told to do by a cabinet maker chum. That would never have crossed my mind, a useful tip.

 

[brightspark]

its pointless and harder work for the motor and blade setting it higher than needed. keep it to a minimum

 

[chunkolini]

So minimum of the blade penetrating through the workpiece.
It's been a long time since I did any of thus.

My mate also recommended having a plank of soft wood under the cut that gets scored as you make the cut.
I've got loads of hideous bright brown varnished banister planks for this.

 

[frank horton]

on my 300mm slider chop saw it has a 90 tooth blade...mid qual for general cutting......
Had miles of man made laminate flooring to chop so bought 2 no name brands off eBay as I would chuck em away after the job....
only used 1 and then had it resharpened....
depending on the job, ply, hard wood, expensive fancy wood or laminate get's a seperate blade in my shop....u just have to be organised so no blade swopping mid job.....
cheap blades are generally OK as long as u dont get em hot....well u wont with cross cutting....
for ripping, a whole diff story,
if its rough wood like that Oak plank of dobbsik...low teeth count is better and plenty of blade sticking out of the bottom...
the lower blade helps to get rid of the s/dust which is what overheats the blades...
Now for fine work like ply a few more teeth and litte blade sticking thru the material....

I have found even buying top class blades a waste of money.........I'm not a commercial shop and when I was they really wern't that much better....
just thicker carbide for more sharpenings....
ALSO
every new blade I buy get resharpened before use, never even take it out of the box.....upto 9" it's 7 euro's, over that it 9 euros regardless of teeth count....

I bought some cheapo blades out of Lidil cos I was cutting up a lots of pallet wood for someone.....
Again only used one of the blades and then had it resharpened.....perfect job...

A lot say that the multy purp blade from Evolution don't cut well or accurately......well I run one of their big circ hand saws and their biggest miter saws and that's bxxxxks....
again keep the blades sharp....they will cut nails but dont like hardened drywall screws...
U cant buy Evolution tools or blades here and what I have has to last...hence the Lidil blades above...

EXCESSIVE HEAT IS THE KILLER OF BLADES....that my 2P's worth....ps been doing it for 50 years....
in the early days there were no carbide blades and we had to sharpen/tickle the HSS blades by hand.....loadsa fun...hahaha....

 

[Agroshield]

My mate also recommended having a plank of soft wood under the cut that gets scored as you make the cut.

Tear out only occurs where the blade exits the wood, not where it enters the wood. With a circular saw, it enters on the underside and exits at the top. That is why tracksaw guides have the splinter strip on them - it bears down at the point the teeth exit the wood and stop the chipping.

Without that, conventional wisdom is to cut with the finished surface downwards. At the edge where the cut ends, it can be helpful to bind it with masking tape if that edge is on view, or clamp a scrap piece to it (like a run off plate on a big weld).

 

[julianf]

Changing blades on my wadkin doesn't take an age, but it's not something I instantly want to do.

Because of this, I may sometimes cross cut with a ripping blade, but if I'm ripping ill always fit the rip blade.

In light of this, I would really caution against the suggestion that "more teeth = better" for ripping.

I suspect you'll just end up bogging down and burning the edge. And, you'll see absolutely no benefit at all.


Basically if you're ripping, use a ripping blade. If you're cross cutting you can be more lazy, but it seems like you're doing that on a different saw anyway.

 

[chunkolini]

Two saws one for each job
Ripping blade it is.
Off to my local hardware suppliers. Lucky to have a proper one in town with guys who know what they are on about