When doing any woodworking projects a clean strait cutting blade is extremely important. If you’re not cutting strain and square time to get a new saw or at least a tune up. If you want a cleaner cut most of that is going to come down to picking the right saw blade. The Freud Premium Fusion Blades, Full Kerf P410 ($99) and Thin Kerf P410T ($79) are positioned as the cleanest cutting general purpose blades for the money and with several technological advances that make these claim true in many applications.
Certainly we’ve all wasted time and materials due to bad cuts, some we can probably contribute to user error but there is nothing more frustrating than tear out or damage caused by a blade that could have been avoided. Taping or zero clearance inserts can help save the venieer but are not always practical and efficient.
The Freud Premium Fusion Blades use some basic geometry/aerodynamics along with several other Freud technologies to improve the total performance of their blades. First off these blades get a 30 degree ATB grind on the carbide teeth which is higher than most competitors such as Forest Woodworker II at 15, Tenryu Gold Metal at 18, Amana Prestige at 20 as well as the CMT General also at 20 degrees.
The Premium Fusion Blades are also the first of any brand to add a 5 degree shear face making it even easier to clear material at each tooth. These other top brands all have side grinds but the Freud blades are the only to have 2 side grinds optimized for less drag. If you think about drag and resistance in any material this of course makes perfect sense. In a high performance car the aim is to get the best aerodynamics so painstaking efforts are made to direct the air out of the way as it basically cuts through air as well as eliminate any drag. The same is true for saw blades in wood however it has always been cost prohibitive to make more angled grinds on each carbide saw tooth. Freud has invested heavily in the research, tooling and equipment necessary to make all these additional angled grinds possible at very aggressive prices.
Couple this new technology with their high density TiCo (titanium cobalt) carbide formula for a tougher yet less brittle carbide, vibration reduction and industries highest performing blade coating which are common features for many of the Freud and Diablo blades.
With all these advances working together the end result is a dramatic 22% reduction in resistance for the Full Kerf and 30% reduction in resistance for the Thin Kerf. Less resistance means less vibration, longer blade life, faster and straighter cuts. The most impressive and most easily noticeable result of this blade is an incredibly smooth finish. We were told 240 grit sand paper would rough up the cut which certainly felt true, at least on the first cut. Unfortunately we have not done any long term testing on this blade yet to see if that holds up for the life of the blade or how it would perform after a resharpening. Having spent time trying to stick sandpaper to the side of a saw blade in hopes a smoother finish it seems this is the next logical step.
For questions on any Freud Professional Woodworking Blades give the pros at Ohio Power Tool a call 800-242-4424 and they will be happy to answer any questions you might have.