confused with plunge saw blades (for ts55, mafell, etc)

[maddav]

I am going to purchase a plunge saw but I am still hesitating between festool, mafell and bosch (the gkt55 which appears to be very close to the mafell mt55 cc). Now I am a little confused about which saw blades I should use. I intend to use the saw for both cross-cuts and rip-cuts in 19mm or 28mm birch (possibly maple also or a very soft wood like paulownia). I would use the 45° angle for miter joins.

The festool TS55 REBQ comes with a W48 blade that festool says is suitable for cross cuts in wood. It appears to be the "finest" blade sold by festool.

The Mafell also comes with a 48 teeth blade but this one is for "particle boards". They sell another 56-teeth blade for cross-cuts in wood that is super expensive.

The Bosch comes with a 48-teeth blade as well "Top Precision Best for Wood".

So my questions: if I buy the Mafell, is the standard blade usable with wood at all? If I have to buy 2 extra blades (one for rip cuts one for cross cuts), it will add to the price considerably.  I understand that at least with the festool blade I would only have to buy a coarser, not very expensive blade for rip cuts. Or could I use the 48 blade for rip cuts as well? Same thing with the Bosch blade but it's probably a lower-end blade anyway.

Independently of the machine, since I understand the blades are interchangeable which choice of blades do you think would be suitable for my use without spending too much? I am of course a hobbyist so I won't use it that much. Accuracy is also more important than speed.

Your help will be much appreciated.

 

[rst]

If you plan on ripping hardwoods your best bet is to buy a rip blade.  It will cut quicker and without the burning that can occur with a fine tooth blade.

 

[Bohdan]

For cross cutting timber or all cutting on manmade boards the fine cut blades with lots of teeth will do fine.

For ripping timber you need a blade like the Festool Panther which has an aggressive attack angle and large gullets with few teeth will cut so much easier that it is worth the cost, however the quality of the cut is reduced.

If you are cutting melamine coated board then a triple chip blade will give you less chipping.

 

[Holmz]

The MT55 has the quickest blade change, but it still took me months to get around to changing the blade. A few times the saw was suggesting that 45-mm thick wood would have preferred a rip blade.

Once you look at rails, then you will be wondering between the GTK55 and the MT55. I have not used the Bosch GTK55 variant, but the Bosch/Mafell rails are better, and the MT55/GTK55 saws are pretty close to each other.
I do use the pre-scoring feature a lot...
Rails are not cheap... The lower cost of the Bosch rails seemed like it made up for much of the higher cost of the MT55.
3 Bosch rails, 1 Bosch connector, a Bosch rail bag, and a OFA Kit32 with the clamps... It all adds up... So you need to pretty much use the full system cost, and then weight up the features versus cost.
Two 1600-mm rails and a connector do all the cross cuts and rips, and the extra rail went on an MFT.

In any case I used the standard blade on ply and melamine and it worked just fine. I changed it out to Tenyru high tooth count for some ply recently as I did not want to risk any chip-out.

And I also tried one of the rip blades. If you are doing more than the occasional cut then a lower tooth count rip blade would be worthwhile... But the high tooth count worked at full depth, albeit just a bit slower. The saw has higher than average power, so with less power a rip blade may be required rather than just worthwhile.

On the other hand maple is pretty hard, so you probably want more than 1 blade. All the rest of the wood would work fine with the standard blade.

 

[JimD]

I use a DeWalt which comes with a 48 tooth blade.  So far, I have used it for everything including rips in 1 inch hardwood and trimming a 1 3/4 exterior door (lengthwise, so it was a rip).  The stock blade has done fine.  I haven't tried full depth cuts in hardwood (i.e. 2 inch) but I would not be surprised to need a rip blade for that. 

While I haven't used the saws you are considering, I suspect they will be similar if the motors draw the same amps.  You should be fine in 1 inch material, man-made or solid wood.  If you want to rip full depth in hardwood you may need to switch to a rip blade.  Oshlun is a good inexpensive source.