Circular Saw Blade Kerf Width

[EJB]

All,

I love my Festool saws, both of the 55's, but the blades I have for ripping, universal and Panther, have a wider kerf than the std fine blade.  This difference messes up the plastic guide strip on the rails when you go back to the fine blade.  You have to reposition the guidestrip..remove the glue residue..etc..etc.  Has Festool redesinged the Blades?  I bought mine way back in 04.  How do you handle this issue.  Don't know if a good resharpener can make a thickeness grid to cure this.

Thanks
Ed

 

[johnsonri]

Ed,

I am to a point where I almost forget that I even have the rubber strips. I use the back of the rail for alignment, not the rubber guides.

My opinion is that you will certainly and always have the variable kerf sizes affecting the rubber, unless you dedicate one rail to each blade.

 

[jakiiski]

Or buy blades, that definitely have the same thickness - I chose to buy some Freud blades that are ALL 2.4mm thick. In practice there is always some variation in the thickness of the actual teeth, but it should be "manageable".

 

[peter halle]

Tenyru also has blades with the same kerf widths.  I have one of their ripping blades and it performs extremely well.

Peter

 

[mattiasp]

You could make a small shim and place it between the blade and the stop on the arbor. The blades are symmetric, so calculating the proper thickness of the shim is easy. Use the most narrow blade as a standard and shim the wider blades.

 

[vajper]

The new Festool blades that was "leaked" in the French Festool brochure were all updated to have the same width as the standard blade on the TS55 (2.2mm).