Best 165mm blade for fine woodworking?

UKworkshop.co.uk

Help Support UKworkshop.co.uk:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Joe1975

Established Member
Joined
12 Oct 2022
Messages
87
Reaction score
54
Location
Dorset
Can anyone, with experience of using it, recommend a decent 165mm circular saw blade for fine joinery?

Will be used on hardwoods and sheet material for ripping and cross-cutting. Quality results are obviously more important than speed of cut.

I’m using a cordless Makita.

Many thanks
 
Judging by the blade size, I assume 'cordless Makita' means a hand-held circular saw (not a table saw). You may struggle to get a clean result on melamine and potentially plywood using a hand saw without a track with a splinter guard.

I'm not sure that a hand-held circular saw and fine joinery are compatible. There are undoubtedly people on this forum who can achieve this, but for a non-professional, it may take quite a lot of trial and error to get the technique right (if possible at all) to achieve passable results. You may need to dial your expectations down, at least to start with, to avoid frustration.
Sandpaper is your friend in this case. I used to get good results with a basic cordless Dewalt circular saw with included construction blade + a lot of hand sanding.

If you still want to explore better blades then for ripping and cross-cutting hardwood, you may need to invest into two different blades.
Any Festool, Blue Bosch, Mafell, or CMT blades are capable of similar results. I am sure there are other good brands, but these 4 are widely available.

For sheet materials, it depends on the material. For instance, I would not use a good blade on OSB at all, as it will dull your fine blade quickly. For melamine and plywood, any 48+ tooth blade will probably do a reasonable job, provided your technique is right - i.e. score cut then actual cut.
Having said that - I would not bother making final cuts in melamine with a regular circular saw.
 
You need one with 12 teeth or so for rips in hard wood, 20 to 24 for crosscuts and plywood etc and 40 or so for laminated boards.

I have been using Freud which I find a bit nicer than the Trend ones but the Trend are fine and pretty cheap if you buy 3 at a time on ebay.
Axminster are fine as well. Key blades are good CMT as well. I just try and find the best offer at the time.
 
At 165mm I'm guessing this is a tracksaw? I've found the Dewalt extreme blade I'm using very good - it seems to be lasting better than Trend blades I've used in the past, and you can get a three pack of 2 x 24 tooth and 1 x 40 tooth for about £35 quid.
 
Back
Top