WWA Info Exchange

I was working on a 1 1/4 poplar end-grain cutting board. I needed to trim a bit off one side of the board so I put it onto my Makita 10" SCMS. While it made the cut quite accurately, it was smoking more than I would like. The sawdust looked more like coffee grounds but the edges of the cut had not a mark on them. I was using an 80 tooth Freud blade. Should I have use something with a lower tooth count? Does the blade need sharpening? The saw did not sound like it was laboring and I have cut 8" 8/4 Lyptus without a problem.

Any guidance is welcome.

I'm no expert by any means, but it sounds like to me that if you were cutting the board with the grain pointing up, then the carbides would be cutting into the fibers at a really shallow angle. That might account for the extra friction and tiny dust grains.

Just a guess of course.

_________________
Frank
WWACOAUX#1
"I love the smell of Sawdust in the morning, it smells like, victory."
WWA'ers I've met: Popeye, Ed Avery, Stephen Wolf, Rockfish, Rodedon

You have an end-grain cutting board. When you trim off a side, you are cutting parallel to the grain, to the fibers of the wood. Therefore, you are making a rip cut--a very short rip cut, but still a rip cut. An 80-tooth blade is designed for crosscuts, and if you try to rip with it, you can expect to get the very result you are getting. Use either a rip blade or a combination blade with 40 teeth, and you will get much more satisfactory results.

Makes perfect sense now that I think about it - a blinding flash of the obvious