table saw advice needed

i would agree with ryan on the blade making the difference in cutting plywood,, i dont have a scoring blade setup and have gotten a blade that cuts as good as ryan says his tenru does so once you get your saw get a couple good blades..

Ryan Mooney said:

When I priced those they cost almost as much as a cabinet type table saw would here in the US (more than most used), I bought a dado set from Forrest (6" dia instead of the 7" the hammer/felder of which is the very biggest grooving blade you can put on without hitting some hardware; regular blades can be up to 300mm/12") which wasn't cheap either but was a whole lot less than the Felder one. In order to support the dado tooling you need to order the hammer saws with an "extended arbor" (Preparation for Dado tooling up to ¾” - is how it's listed on the website) which is a factory option and can't be retrofit on later, that's now (again according to the website) a standard option on saws shipped to the US, but I don't know if it is over there or not, it might be since the US is such a large part of the market it would probably make sense to make them all the same. There is another part you put over the saw blade to clamp it down (basically an oversized washer) that is different for regular blades and dado blades as well (the regular one is thicker and then there is a thinner one for the thicker dado tooling as well as two different lengths of bolts). The plethora of options on the hammer tools can be a bit confusing (for example there are a number of crosscut fence type accessories and I'm still not sure about some of them).

I have the option for the incisor/scoring blade but have never put a blade on it . It came stock on the package deal I got otherwise I probably wouldn't have gotten it. For normal plywood I get basically tear out free cuts with the blade I bought from tenryu (the Felder blade as shipped wasn't as clean), I could see it being useful if you were cutting a bunch of melamine or maybe prefinished plywood or were doing a lot of euro style cabinetry with no face frames to hide any small oops. For solid wood is not really useful.

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In order to support a dado blade, the saw mechanism must be moved about an inch farther from the slider, which is why it is a factory only option. The arbor itself must also be longer to support a 3/4 inch thick blade rather than a 1/8 inch thick blade. (If the arbor were longer on all the machines, then you wouldn't be able to get a 10-12 inch blade on a non-dado machine - the long arbor would extend under the slider).

Now that I have had a slider for 9 years, I would gladly give up the dado feature to have the blade closer to the slider. I cut my dadoes with a router, so the cut follows any bow in the plywood; with a constant depth dado I can clamp out the bow during glue-up. Bottom line, I have a dado capable saw and a dado blade, and never use them.

I do use the incisor/scoring blade on my saw. If I have nice fresh wood from the lumber yard, I can often cut it with no tear out, but once in a while, it gets cranky and tears out like crazy. Wood that has been in my shop for years (leftovers) are far more likely to tear out. The thickness of the scoring blade has to be matched to the thickness of the main blade... the split blade with shims is the way to go. But I have had nominally identical blades that are just enough different that the scoring blade should be set up differently (for example two Forrest WW II blades have a slightly different kerf). Therefore sometimes I set up the scoring blade so only one side is perfectly aligned.

I get a smoother edge on my solid wood from the saw than I do edge jointing, but when the scoring blade is in use, there is sometimes a tiny mark from that blade on the saw kerf. That isn't enough to interfere with a glue joint but it is enough to be visible if I am edge jointing some boards. Therefore I do not use the scoring blade when I am working with solid wood (and don't bother with it if I am only cutting with the grain on plywood).

The scoring blade rotates the opposite direction from the main blade. Therefore it enters the wood at the bottom face (and at the start of the cut, leaves at the edge). I cut the scoring groove only 1-2 mm deep. The main blade enters the wood at the top face, and leaves through the scoring groove. Be careful, since the scoring blade wants to pull the work into the main blade - as you are pushing the work in the saw, you have to switch from pushing to holding back for the instant that the scoring blade is cutting but it has not yet reached the main blade.