Looking for a Cheap Trashy blade for my TS-55

[Eli]

Have you done any laminate flooring at all, Fred?

 

[Lou Miller]

Pergo, for example, is an aluminum oxide coating laminate with a photographic representation of wood on top. You're right that the boards themselves are not mineral. They are 80% wood product and 20% resin. But we're skirting the real question. Is it not better to just get the blade that Festool makes for cutting them?

Not for straight forward installations. A normal install will have ALL of the cuts covered by moldings, so it serves no purpose to use a quality blade. The only time that using a quality blade makes any sense with this stuff is with inlays where your cuts are going to be visible.

Is it a better alternative to buying less suitable quantities of blades? Cheap blades wear much more quickly than quality ones,

Not when it comes to laminate flooring. It doesn't matter how good the blade is, or how cheap the blade is, the difference in time it takes to dull the blade is very minimal. Festool's blade is simply a triple chip grind. The TCG does make a big difference when it comes to corian, melamine, and MDF. However, the TCG doesn't make a bit of difference when it comes to laminate flooring. We went through a whole bunch of TCG blades, they last only slightly longer and the added cost is far from justified.

so can you really say that you're using heaps of them for the job because of the material? When I have a laminate job, I'm buying a laminate blade. I'd like to hear from someone who has used it.

No offense, but by using a laminate blade for your jobs, you're just throwing money away. I have Festool's laminate blade. It does a fantastic job with corian and is worth every penny for that use.  I'd never use it for laminate flooring though. It cost $60.50 (US), so it would have to hold up 12 twelve times longer than a cheap $5 blade that you can pick up at virtually any home center or lumber yard. While the Festool blade is a very nice blade, it has no chance of lasting 12 times as long with laminates, it doesn't even have a chance to last twice as long.

Of course to use a Festool saw, and take advantage of the dust collection, you still need to use a Festool blade. Their universal blade is a 28 tooth blade and its $40(US). Still very expensive for something that is going to get ruined very quickly, but its the best alternative for use in a Festool saw. You could use the standard blade, but it looks to me like it would be too agressive.

 

[joiner1970]

God you Yanks are so lazy.

I suppose you dont use handsaws any more, next thing you know you will be using machines that fire the nails in to the wood and not using hammers.  ;D ;D

 

[Lou Miller]

God you Yanks are so lazy.

I suppose you dont use handsaws any more, next thing you know you will be using machines that fire the nails in to the wood and not using hammers.  ;D ;D

What's a hammer?

 

[Eli]

God you Yanks are so lazy.

I suppose you dont use handsaws any more, next thing you know you will be using machines that fire the nails in to the wood and not using hammers.  ;D ;D

What's a hammer?

It's that swingy thing people use to close paint tins.

Message received on the cheap blades.