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I've used both now and thought I would post some thoughts....

Equipment: Rikon 18 inch Bandsaw

Here are some photos of the blades....



WOODMASTER CT IN THE FOREGROUND


Out of the box the Laguna comes with a protective lubricant on it....the Woodmaster CT did not. I wiped it all down and inspected the length of the blade, including the weld joint. The joint felt good and appeared to be straight on all axes. I could see small voids in the weld joint but other than that it seemed perfect. It does not wander back and forth on the tire as the saw turns. So far the only material I've run through the saw while the Laguna blade was installed was Black Limba, Curly Bubinga, Cocobolo, and a small amount of Brazilian Rosewood.

To generalize I would say the Laguna blade is a well refined lady that gets things done with finesse, but requires that certain conditions are met. The Woodmaster CT is the hammer swinger that gets it done regardless of the conditions and doesn't care whether or not you think the finish is smooth or otherwise.

Some specifics - The final kerf (I measured) on the the Laguna blade is .042......the Woodmaster CT is .056. The Laguna blade and Curly Bubinga I have here at the house do NOT get along. The band of the blade will dance around in the kerf of the cut. It doesn't curve away...it just dances. The saw did a good job of keeping it from wandering toward or away from the fence. As I was feeding the Bubinga it would lurch forward a few thousandths and suddenly stop. In the past I've discovered that a billet that is not flat and square, or more specifically not flat on the bottom side will cause this, but this billet was prep'd before it went to the saw. I tried really aggessive feed rates, because sometimes not enough of a feed rate will chatter a blade, and this only exacerbated the difficulty. The Laguna didn't refuse to perform the cut but it complained the whole time. The Woodmaster CT doesn't seem to care how fast you feed it and since the band is thicker you don't get as much movement on the back side of the cut. The smoothness of the cut could never be compared to the Laguna blade but the Woodmaster CT will cut much faster and complain less. The Laguna blade is MUCH louder too. It has a high pitched sing to it and the sing gets louder as the height of the resaw increases. I couldn't get the cut in the Bubinga (with the Laguna blade) to look or feel anything like the Black Limba that it cut. The Laguna blade and the Black Limba are a marriage made in heaven. Beautiful finished cuts...no need to smooth things out on the sander at all....and the Laguna blade didn't mind aggressive feed rates with the Black Limba. The blade would wiggle a little more but still would track and cut. The Laguna blade was a pleasure to use on the Cocobolo I put through it too. The drift on the Laguna blade is more pronounced than the Woodmaster CT. The only other item of note was that when the Laguna blade entered the front side of the billet it seemed to require a little more feed pressure. Once the blade was in a half inch or so it seemed to settle down and the feed pressure could come down while the feed rate stayed the same. I have no clue if that means anything or not.

When your billets get to be in the 2 inch and thicker range, the Resaw King really begins to show the benefit of it's thin kerf. I got 2 extra sets out of some Black Limba billets with it today. The Woodmaster CT is a really good blade and you CAN get high yields out of you billets, but the match suits the Resaw King better.

To repeat....just some initial impressions. I have no idea how long the blade will last. I can say however the resharpening of the Laguna blade is said to be 4 or 5 times, whereas (depending on whom you talk to) the Woodmaster CT is not built to be resharpened. Iturra says it's not but I found a company out in California that did a pretty good job. I now have to buy a new one though because the Bubinga has knocked off a few pieces and chips of the carbide teeth on the Woodmaster....

I plan on keeping both stocked in my shop as I really like the Resaw King. I think they both have a place.

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There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

I had a similar comparison with comparing the Resaw King against the Aluminum Master blades. The Aluminum Master will cut Brazilian or most really hard woods without much complaint, but the Resaw King shines with woods like Mahogany. I had some mahogany slices come off the RK looking like they were planed, and with the sae set up right, those same slices were within .001" of themselves measured on all sides and ends. It was pretty spectacular. I didn't like the results of slicing cocobolo or other really oily woods with the RK though, and preferred the AM to it or if it was sides material, I would even use a Iturra Bladerunner with better results.

Chris, what blade tension are you using on these? I run mine at around 25-30K lbs.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Don I've never used a tension meter. I'm not opposed to one...I've just never purchased one. I've always used drift and band 'wobble' as an indicator. Wish I could tell you the tension but I have no idea....other than to say it's tight enough not to wander. I'll admit I've wasted enough wood in the efforts of discovering 'enough' tension. Enough to pay for a tension meter.

Filippo - good question. The only time the band of the Resaw King misbehaved was in the Bubinga. It was as if it were searching for an alternate route. I was able to calm it down just a small amount with more tension, but more isn't always better. Especially considering the thin band Laguna uses for these blades.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

I had a similar experience with the RK in Cocobolo. In fact, it just plain wouldn't cut it. It did give a fine finish in woods that it would cut. I ended up returning mine.

I've been using that those really thin blades from Spectrum Supply when I really want a thin kerf. They don't last long but you can buy about 5 of them for the price of a RK.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Thought I'd update everyone with some specifics.

The Resaw King blade cut the following:

10 sets of African Mahogany (backs and sides)
18 sets of Black Limba (backs and sides)
5 sets of Quilted Maple (orphan back sets only)
2 Cocobolo headplates
About 20 Brazilian Rosewood bridge blanks
6 Brazilian headplates
5 sets of Curly Bubinga

I have no doubt that IF I had not pushed Brazilian Rosewood and Bubinga through the blade it would have easily cut 50 sets of any species with better shop manners. The Resaw King absolutely did not like the Bubinga and it seemed as though it hated the Brazilian Rosewood even worse, which came as a surprise given the heights and thicknesses associated with bridge blanks and headplates versus acoustic back sets. I can't remember the exact order in which this stuff was sawn and that probably would have been beneficial information. Nonetheless I like the blade for certain woods. Anything the Resaw King doesn't like will get sawn with the Lennox Woodmaster CT...it doesn't care what you put through it. Blade longevity seems to be leaning towards the Lennox blade in my experience. YMMV.

Now I have to package up the Resaw King and send it back to Laguna for sharpening. I suspect it will come back to me in great condition.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Chris you are exactly right on the Resaw King. Some woods it is the very best for (Mahogany) but others it cannot handle, like Brazilian or Bubinga. Anything that has higher mineral or silica content isn't going to be liked so well by the RK. Better to go with the Lenox for those things. I had a a Lenox Aluminum Master that was heavily used and looking pretty gunked up, and it plowed through 14" wide Brazilian like butter. The RK couldn't manage more than a few inches before starting to overheat and smoke.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

Chris,

Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences in detail.

I just bought a Resaw King but haven't used it yet. I'm in the midst of replacing the lower wheel on my bandsaw.

Anyhow, does anyone have experience with the Lenox Tri-master? When I bought the Resaw King, the guy from Laguna said that the Trimaster was the only blade that reasonably compared to the Resaw King. But then again, "the guy from Laguna" would not be an impartial judge.

With the price of good guitar wood, a good resaw blade could be worth the investment, but these carbide tipped blades are pretty pricey too so one can't afford to buy the wrong one. I suspect that like everything else, there is not one blade that will do everything well - the jack of all, master of none phenomena.

So, has anyone tried the Lenox Tri-master?

Kevin Looker

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I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I have used the Tri-master and I liked that blade. I didn't get any long term use out of it because my table insert collapsed and the blade tried to pull a 4 inch tall block through the little hole. Destroyed the blade. I sent it back to Iturra and he put it back together but it had two weld joints in it after that fix.....and two weld joints didn't work very well. When the blade was new, my experience was that it would produce a finished cut that equaled the Resaw King (assuming the variable tpi variety) but the kerf was a tad wider than the Woodmaster CT (I didn't measure it...just recalling my thoughts), making it significantly wider than the Resaw King.

I'd say buy the Resaw King if you are going after the Mahogany's and other well behaved woods. If you are looking at Cocobolo, Bubinga, or any other hard exotic...buy the Woodmaster CT. It's a choice that will accomplish all your tasks but just won't give you that freshly planed finish. If you think about it, you'll have to run everything through the sander anyway.

_________________
There is no difference between the man that thinks he can....and the man that thinks he cannot.

Chris,

Last question:

Is that the 2 tpi Woodmaster or the 1.3 tpi Woodmaster & how do you get ahold of Iturra? When I search I find reference to their catalog but I can't find them.

Thanks,
Kevin Looker

_________________
I'm not a luthier.
I'm just a guy who builds guitars in his basement.
It's better than playing golf.

I know there are differences sometimes in the individual blades, too. I had one laguna resaw king that was so wonderful, i bought a second one. When my first blade finally got dull 6 months later(only because I hit a 2 inch nail perfectly in line), I put on my new resaw king- it never cut the first plate of mahogany successfully. It was so awful I thought something had happened to my saw. But reeally after running several otherplain woodslicer blades, I am pretty sure I got a bum, very expensive, blade. I still have it, I believe the gullet is malformed, but I don't understand what that would affect, but I think it does have a big impact. The teeth on this bad saw have what looks like a double gullet.