Say
hello to Maegan. She is new to woodworking and my shop, but I look forward to many more
visits.
This day I decided to look at a new blade from CMT, their "Glue Line
Ripping Blade."
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Right off the bat you can see that there are more teeth, 30, than the usual rip
blade (24). Both blades have the anti-kick back design. There are other differences but I
will stop at this point. What I really want to see is the quality of the cut — after
all, "glue line rip" is suppose to give you an edge that is so smooth that no
other jointing is necessary and you can just place the board directly into a panel glue
up.
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First up
is the CMT Fine Kerf Ripping Blade. The fine kerf blades are designed to allow lower
horsepower saws to rip efficiently. With the Uni-saw in the shop, I shouldn't need the
thin kerf, but I have used it allot and it performs faultlessly. You can see that I do use
a blade stabilizer. I do that with all blades.
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If you
were wondering why the wood was so "ugly", it is because I was able to get a
hold of some "shorts". They are 2" X 2" so they will serve well to
test the blades.
Maegan is adjusting a new clamp that we have had in the shop for a month or
so. We really like it.
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This is
the shot of the holddown. we are using. It is from Lee Valley and is called the MagSwitch® featherboard. The
two knobs (A) are the "MagSwitch". They really work so very well. You simply
place the featherboard where you want it and turn the knob. That lowers a very strong
magnet which holds the device fast. The vertical featherboard can also be used and that is
locked in place by two thumbscrews.
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And
Maegan makes the cut. While the featherboard helps, Maegan has to use the push shoe to
keep control for the entire cut.
She and I made cuts so that we could judge the degree of resistance of the
ripping action.
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This is
going to be a very hard test. The cut was almost perfect. Where there were saw marks, it
was where Maegan or I stopped and started. It is more than likely that if we fed the piece
smoother, we would have perfect faces. As it was, one pass over the jointer would have
been enough. I have the jointer set to remove 1/32" on each pass. That would have
been enough. If the faces simply showed, I think the Festool RO 150 sander starting at 80
grit would handle these surfaces in no time.
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She has
changed the blade and the standard kerf rip blade is cutting.
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The saw
marks show where we were not smooth in feeding, otherwise, it is about the same quality as
with the thin kerf blade.
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This is
the cut from the new CMT Glue Line Ripping blade. The surfaces are smooth and free from
blade swirls. You could probably start sanding at 150 or higher.
When we start scrutinizing the surfaces as close as we have been doing,
we can lose sight of the fact that a all three of these blades give us an almost perfect
rip cut. Sometimes they get jointed. More often, one pass of a cabinet scraper and it's
time for glue up.
I will try to remember to do the same test next time we have proper stock for
a glue up.
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