Saw blade

[jwboatdesigns]

I've been filling in at a toolshop, primarily a place that sharpens commercial woodworking and engineering tooling and saws, but which has a little trade showroom that sells replacements and new items such as circular saws ( up to 1100mm in diameter) CNC router tooling and chucks, spindle moulder tooling and on and on, easily 1500 line items plus another couple of thousand available overnight from outside suppliers.

I use saws a lot at home, and like most people with single phase 220 v sawbenches I find that mine could do with a bit ( a lot actually) more power. One of the options is to use a specialised thin kerf blade with a tooth form designed for ripping and change back and forth from the general purpose blade for crosscutting to that and back as the use changes, but thats a pain in the very low back when you are only doing short runs of one or two peices.
We sell a sawblade produced by tool company Makita, the range is called "Bluemac", yes its bright blue, comes in a variety of diameters and bore sizes, several teeth types and pitch ( spacing). I chose a 36tooth 350 dia one and took it home for a trial run on some wet sticky pine. Much better than the standard one, the blue coating is non stick low friction, the kerf ( width of the teeth) is less so it needs less power to cut, and it cuts cleanly and smoothly both along and across the grain. The best thing of all was that the price is not exorbitant, not cheap but not so bad as the really top professional ones.

:judge:Good product.
Nice colour too.

John Welsford

[Mike]

John

I've done a search on UK tools sites for Makita Bluemac, Bluemak, Blue Mac, and Blue Mak. No joy. It seems we don't have 'em here.

However, Blue Mak turns up loads of links to sites in Australia selling 'Makita Blue Mak' blades. Looks like the Antipodes is ahead of us here in the UK at yet another level.

I'll keep my eye on what comes up but it does annoy me that we seem to only look to import products that are cheap rather than quality, especially at the present time when things are a bit tough economically.

One of my favourite tool suppliers here, Rutlands, seems to be focussing on cheap product only these days. It has dumped all the best, and most expensive, stuff in favour of the cheapest possible imports. Shame.

Regards

[jwboatdesigns]

Im sure that they will turn up soon, Makita is doing a world wide drive to increase business and some of that is to be additional product. You'll be able to buy "Genuine Makita " sandpapers, saw blades, drill bits and suchlike. All good quality, all modest price and all avaiable from your friendly local Makita man. I've been talking to the local distributors here, a wholly owned branch of Makita, and they tell me that the cheap stuff has not hurt them as much as it has the other Japanese brands as they have been concentrating on the trade sales rather than the handyman, and I know that when I see a builders van its more often than not full of Makita blue.

JohnW

[Mike]

Definitely true, John. We had a leak in our house's gas service pipe. After days of searching for it, they re-sleeved the busted pipe and a technician came around to connect the meter up again, test the system, and re-light our boiler.

He came through the front door carrying ... you guessed it ... a big blue carry case with 'Makita' stamped on the outside. Inside were several terrific tools, all Li-ion battery powered. He swears by Makita and thinks they are just the bees' knees.