The Workhorse Of Your Table Saw

Flat Top Grind - These blades are for rough cutting and are not suitable for precision cuts. They work like a chisel and are also called rakers. The advantage with these types of blades is that they are fast.

Alternate Top Bevel - These blades shear the wood cleanly using a slicing movement. The teeth are alternately angled in opposite directions and they are generally sold as all purpose blades.

Combination - These blades can also be considered for general purposes with 50 teeth arranged in sets of 5 alternating every fourth alternate top bevel tooth with a raker tooth.

Triple Chip Grind - These blades have alternate chamfered teeth with raker teeth. This arrangement is intended for dense products such as solid surface materials as the teeth don't blunt so quickly.

Generally, it is said that the more teeth a blade has the smoother and slower in cuts while the less teeth it has the faster and rougher it cuts.

So, which blade should you choose? Broadly speaking, for the majority of your jobs a good quality, all purpose combination blade will suffice. However, you need to bear in mind that the finished result will reflect the quality of the tools used. There is a huge difference between the finish on a piece of wood cut by cheap rough blades and that on a piece of wood cut by refined, high quality blades. This is one area where skimping on cost will be a false economy.