Blade for cutting treated wood

[Ron Jones]

A friend has asked me to make 2 crosses that will be placed on the side of the road where his parents were killed by a drunk driver. Glad to do it--it seems an honor to be asked. This may lead to doing several more which is fine with me. My questions is simply this: do I need to replace the WW II and/or Freud really good blades with another to be used just for treated wood (4 x 4's) or should I not worry about the treated wood damaging the better blades? Same question about my DeWalt dado? Thanks for the input!

[Don Baer]

I've never cut treated wood hmmmm. Don't think it would hurt but maybe someone else knows. I know Allen cuts PT wood for his chairs, maybe he could tell ya.

[Bill Simpson]

Being more of a spurt than expurt, I see no reason PT would damage a blade, The juice may build up but a good cleaning should take care of that.

[Brent Dowell]

Was shopping for blades lately at the Borg and was surprised to see some of them were labled as being particularly well suited for 'wet wood'.

The doug fir dimensional lumber we get around here has usually not been dried very much and you can tell by lifting them how wet they are...

[Vaughn McMillan]

Ron, the little bit of PT wood I've worked with (the green-colored stuff) cut and behaved like any other dry wood. I don't think it'll be any harder on blades than untreated wood.

[Tom Hoffman]

Recently I built a pole building out of treated 4X6 posts, have also built a greenhouse out of treated wood in the past. I never gave it much thought. Around here treated wood is used alot, and I don't believe anyone else (carpenters) give it a second thought either. Cuts just like any other wood. I don't have any build up on the blade that I have ever notice.

I do use Irwin Marathon thin kerf carbide blades on my circular saw and table saw most of the time and only change over to Freud or multi tooth boads for cabinet plywood.

[Bill Simpson]

I done commented once but.. A while back I built a new fence using PT Dogeared planks , I ripped them to 1.75" and planed to 1/2" thickness, When I got them they were soaking wet (except for the top of the stack) so I sticker stacked them for a couple days in my garage (Summer and warm) Then I ripped each into three slats, stickered for a couple days and then planed to thickness.

(Lattace type fence panels)

Gist of the story.... I used 24 tooth rip blade w/o problem (cleaned it after completion) As for the planer, I have a Ridgid and only once did feel a need to clean the cutter head. Biggest problem was the moisture (and fumes) at the end of a work session, every thing felt damp, so I WD40ed everything before & after to prevent rust.

[Drew Watson]

Wear a mask as the fibers that are soaked in the chemicals will become ariborne and will get into the lungs and into the body and the stuff is nasty. Any cuts should be re coated in the Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) ( green death).

Why not make them out of cedar as they have a natural preservative in them and then coat them in linseed oil?

[Jim DeLaney]

...Any cuts should be re coated in the Chromated copper arsenate (CCA) ( green death)...

I thought they did away with using CCA about two generations of treated wood ago. They went from CCA to ACQ about seven or eight years ago, and then recently changed formulations yet again.

Agreed that CCA was nasty stuff - but that aside, it was still the most effective for the job.

[Drew Watson]

I thought they did away with using CCA about two generations of treated wood ago. They went from CCA to ACQ about seven or eight years ago, and then recently changed formulations yet again.

Agreed that CCA was nasty stuff - but that aside, it was still the most effective for the job.

I think your right with that Jim. I just went and found my bottle of the stuff I have in my shop ( use it on the job all the time) and it is copper naphthenate ( still we call it green death) Here is the link to the info on it.

http://pr-rp.pmra-arla.gc.ca/PR_SOL/...e1?p_ukid=9655