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Okay ... I'm going to provide the straight up "here's how it is" story. For those who are weak of stomach when anything gets critical input, do us a favor and just skip my post - Press Here To Leave.

Laguna is complete CRAP. Nothing perturbs me more than being someone else's R&D department, not getting paid for it and further having paid FOR JUNK.

We bought two 1" carbide tipped Laguna Resaw King blades. Todd had to send his back to be resharpened when it was brand new - after we spent hours trying to solve the problem on the saw. You assume it is your error, not the manufacturer. Well after wrangling with Laguna, paying to send a blade back, Todd received a blade that ... surprise surprise ... was sharp!

So now I go to set up my 1" blade. The night before I had sliced 20 Gabon Ebony head plates 4" tall resaw with an inexpensive 3/8" Diamond Saw Works steel blade ($13 blade). No problem. But to do the ebony fretboards, I wanted tighter tolerances and a better cut with less cleanup as the wood is expensive and yield matters. So I spend about 45 minutes setting up the Laguna Resaw King blade, double checking everything, cleaning everything up. Lo and behold I can not get a straight cut with a dog slow feed rate. In fact, the saw is loading up (it's a 220V) and the motor bogs down. Folks this is a 5 1/2" tall block of ebony. I cut 2" ... and caused that. I had 0.040" walk in those 2". Definition of slow: 2" cut took about 30 seconds.

So I post a thread on the OLF asking about my setup. I get back that the Laguna Resaw King doesn't do ebony well.

Okay. So I have birdseye maple fretboards to cut as well. They are a 2 1/2" tall resaw. Line one of those up ... SAME THING ... the Laguna Resaw King fights to cut and walks. Folks THIS IS A NEW BLADE.

So I've got wood which I can likely save (the cuts didn't go too far), and half a day's worth of debugging to have me conclude that Laguna sells JUNK. For those of you that got lucky with something that works. My hats off to you. Go buy a lottery ticket as it must have been your lucky day. We've got two strikes. I would like to chuck this piece of trash in the garbage, which I just might do. Unfortunately I can not afford to sink $120+ into another blade right now, and if I call Laguna the Italian in my will be compelled to tell them the whole story and then ask them what they believe this says about their competency with saw blades at this point.

JUNK.

Filippo

For starters, the RK is NOT a carbide blade. It might be carbide impregnated, but they don't make a claim (at least they didn't in the past) that it was. Ebony will dull those things lickety split, as will Bubinga and BRW. It is by far the best blade I've ever used for Mahogany though. You probably dulled it trying to slice the ebony, and then it's simply not going to cut the maple either. This is not your fault, it's Laguna's for putting out a blade that seems to be capable of doing work that it can't stand up to. That said, knowing what a blade can and cannot do is what it's all about. As I said, I've resawn mahogany with those and had it come off the saw looking planed, but I won't use it for much else.

Bob, what is your favorite Resaw blade?

Mike

My resharpened saw blade has worked well for woods other than rosewoods, where the self-feeding geometry is an issue.

That's CT for carbide tip, right? What is the average price? Hast to be less than the Tri.

Mike

The Woodmaster CT runs about $110 for a 142" blade from Spectrum Supply. The RKs we bought were $75 per (2 for 1), so I expect about $150 per for a 142" blade. The Trimaster in 1" 2/3 is about $200.

Suffolk Machinery, whose blades I've been quite pleased, has had a carbide tipped 1" blade for about 2 years. I've not purchased this particular blade. Has anyone used it? And I agree with Kim ... if Uncle Bob calls it then that's good by me, so the CT is an obvious choice.

Filippo

I'll say it again. Lennox 3/4 Vari TPI Bi-Metal for re-sawing, 6TPI for general work. All from Hastings Saw in Santa Rosa CA.
-C