Kevin normally buys Continental chopsaw blades and has them sharpened.
You do know you can have them sharpened, right?
Don’t throw away used toothed chopsaw blades! You can get dozens of trips to the sharpening shop to get them sharpened before you have to replace one. Kevin likes the Continental blades because that was what was recommended by his local sharpening shop.
And after using various blades – DeWalt blades, a Jet blades – He prefers the Continental sawblades. Continental sawblades are much heavier than the “big box store” sawblades. There’s more metal, so they’re going to last longer.
The teeth on these blades are little carbide inserts that are welded right onto the sawblade. The saw shop just resharpens the inserts so the sawblade is reusable.
If you damage 1, 2 or maybe 3 teeth, it’s cheaper to have them replaced and keep the same sawblade. But if something, say, comes loose in the vise and you damage a bunch of teeth, it’s more economical to buy a new sawblade.
Prices of new Continental sawblades depend upon the tooth count. Kevin shows a 78-tooth sawblade for steel and a 102-tooth blade for aluminum. New steel sawblades are going to cost between $130 to about $174 each. Ouch! Take care of them.
Aluminum blades have more teeth even though they feel about the same weight as the steel blades. So aluminum blades cost a little more, probably $200 to $220. But being able to sharpen makes a huge difference! It costs Kevin about $45 to have one resharpened. If you need new teeth, add another $45. It can get expensive, but they last a heck of a lot longer than those abrasive blades and with a toothed chopsaw blade all you get is chips. You don’t get the dust so you don’t look like you’re working in a coal mine.
Kevin cannot emphasize enough, however, that you CANNOT put a toothed blade on an abrasive chopsaw. They turn at a different speed, so if you do, you’ll just burn up the sawblades trying to force them down through the metal.
In this free how to video you can see how slowly Kevin was cutting, using just the weight of his hand, giving the blade a chance to cut.
(Kevin also explains why the sawblade he is showing with a $90 price on it was used supposedly use once. He got it at his saw sharpening shop – $90 versus $150,200? He’ll pop from that.)
Kevin usually buys his blades at the saw sharpening shop. If you do enough business with them, you start to get a little discount in price. But you also can buy these online – Amazon carries them.You just need to know sawblade diameter, tooth count, what you are cutting (steel, aluminum, stainless, etc.) because they all take a different tooth count, and your saw’s arbor size.
You can probably also find a saw sharpening shop in your area by searching for “saw sharpening shop near me.”
Kevin hopes that answers your questions about these great sawblades. He does appreciate you watching.
Before you go, you might want to hang around for another moment to see a usually glib Kevin stump himself ….