Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a while. You know that tablesaw blade you’ve got? Yeah, I know it’s carbide. I know it’s supposed to last forever. I realize it’s reshapenable dozens of times. It’s made of compressed meterorites hand-culled from the Oort nebula. That’s wonderful. Take it off, hang it on the wall, and save it for when your friend comes over to borrow the table saw.
No go buy yourself an 80 tooth blade of reasonable quality. Use it for basically anything involving hardwoods in reasonable shape. Let me summarize this way: a $400 table saw with a new 80-tooth blade cuts better than an $800 table saw with a crappy low-tooth-count blade.
If you don’t abuse the blade too badly, you’ll find your saw has miraculously started producing perfect, glossy-smooth cuts ready for a glue line. When you’re working with nail-filled dirt-covered twisted two-by-fours, switch back to the old Oort 18-toother. You’ll thank me for it.

(I’m sure there’s some middle ground between the crappy blade that comes with your saw and the gorgeous shimmery cuts produced by sterling 80-toother, but frankly I don’t want to keep dropping $50 bucks a blade to find out. With my Oort 18 and Freud 80 I can handle anything.)

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