Are you fed up with your circular saw because it’s not performing how it should? It might be due to the improper blade you’re using or you’re trying to cut different types of materials with the same blade.
Carpenters often change their circular saw blades to get the due impact on cutting, but they hit back. Because most of the time, they choose the wrong one. What will you do if you go to a shop to buy a blade for your circular saw?
Using the right blade based on the type of material has no alternative. So, learning all types of circular saw blades is the only way to master woodworking. You’ll need to learn the circular saw blade types and uses either.
Types of Circular Saw Blades: Why to Learn
No doubt you like the circular saw because it can be configured for various cutting for different metals like metal, concrete, wood, plastic, and more.
As long as you’re concerned with versatile cutting, you must learn how to configure the saw for a specific cut with the right saw blade.
If you’re stuck with a query like how do I choose the right saw blade, the following discussion will serve you by describing the different types of circular saw blades.
Factors That Decide the Type of a Blade
When you intend to purchase another blade for your circular saw, it means you’re serious about enjoying all-around cutting capacity with ease.
However, if you don’t know what is the right blade for a particular cutting, your effort for perfect cutting will go vain.
The flowing factors will point to the right blade. Get them at your finger’s end.
1. Types of Materials
The major factor of getting the right selection of circular saw blades is the type of materials you’d cut is the thing which should decide which blade is to purchase.
All circular saws, be it worm drive or sidewinder, are engineered for various cuts. But they make the specialized blade for optimum performance.
2. Type of Job
What you aim with a particular material decides further when purchasing a blade. Blades are born for several cutting jobs – rough and quick cuts to clean and careful cuts bringing a lot of significance on the job. Choosing wisely will serve you better.
3. Type of Cuts
Different cuts require a different type of blade even with the same material. You’ll find different circular saw blade sizes based on crosscutting, dado, ripping, and many more. The following section will shed light on them.
Different Types of Circular Saw Blades (Based on Usages)
The circular saw with an 8 to 15-amp motor demands a 7 ½ diameter blade for desired performance. You may improvise all your cutting assignments with the same blade it comes with. But the cutting output will not satisfy you as each blade has a specific field of cutting.
Luckily, the woodworking industry has already invented different types of saw blades with the varied uses of a carpenter keeping in mind. Let’s break them down in the below section for the sake of your passion.
Any materials you cut can be categorized within a few.
1. Wood Cutting Blades
When it comes to wood cutting blades, you’re exposed to mostly to types of blades – plywood blades and construction blades. A blade with forty teeth or more is best-suited for fine cutting. A blade with twenty and forty teeth is ideal if you aim for basic carpentry. In that case, you have to forget smooth cutting.
As long as you deal with a rough piece, cutting quality comes in second. Just concentrate on sizing first. But if you care clean cut most, feed the blade from the back of the piece.
The science of why you should do so is the nature of the blade. The blades cut in a counterclockwise manner. If it enters, the result is clean. And if it returns, it’ll produce a quality cut.
A Circular saw blade for plywood is another common blade type for cutting wood. Such blades have nearly 160 small teeth and are made of graded steel. The small teeth return the best in clean cutting engendering minimal dust.
The blades with fewer teeth around 14-24 and deeper gullets are better for rip cutting. And crosscutting blades have more teeth and shallower gullet than a ripping blades.
2. Masonry Cutting Blades
That’d be counter-intuitive thinking to manage all types of materials with the same blade, whereas the blade is no longer versatile as long as it is configured with the right blade. How will you manage a hard piece of material with a blade that can’t stand for itself?
If you like to size hard materials like concrete or natural stone, you need a specialized blade that brings the perfect cutting yet generates no waste. This high-performance blade is made of fibreglass-reinforced silicon carbide abrasive for cutting and slicing concrete, natural stone, bricks, tile and more.
There are two versions of the blade based on several sorts of hard materials. They might be harder materials such as granite, concrete, marble and other rough ones those fall in this category. Or they might be softer ones like brick, concrete block and limestone.
Whatever they are, take adequate safety protection and wear gloves and earmuffs as they are louder.
3. Metal Cutting Blade
Cutting metal involves generating heat when it cuts through the piece. So, the blade has to care for it seriously during cutting. They are rough and toothless and made of graded steel and equipped with a heat expansion slot. Such a type of blade is similar to the masonry blade but not interchangeable.
You can size several types of metal like galvanized sheets, stovepipes, and thin bar stock, bronze, brass, copper and many more. The blades are specialized for these materials minimizing the fear of shattering during cutting.
Make sure, you approach slowly and put on gloves and glasses.
4. Plastic Cutting Blades
Few carpenters improvise with the wood cutting blade when cutting any plastic materials. That’s a pretty smart idea to get it done with a blade that comes with 40-60 teeth. They are good enough for cutting all types of plastic and sometimes soft and non-ferrous metals.
The speed of cutting may fall you in trouble when you’re exposed to plastic materials. As long as you cut plastic, apply a slow approach.
Remember, the slower your move, the better the output is. Rather, force cutting causes the stock to get stuck and kick back in the long run.
Choosing Circular Saw Blades
Final Words
Finding the right and precise types of blade for each assignment for your circular saw might be tedious, but it’ll surely accomplish the goal of woodworking.
Remember, your saw is nothing without its blade. A good blade makes a good saw. So, invest in the right type of circular saw blade to get the versatile cutting out of your saw.
