Forrest: from
WoodCentral
Forrest saw blades are regarded by many as the ne plus ultra of cutting tools, but not everyone agrees they are worth the price. This thread started with an innocent question about saving money on them, and soon spread to opinions about them. - Editor
"Can anyone tell me the cheapest place to purchase Forrest Blades?" - DP
Rather than answer the question, the first poster more or less hijacked the thread with this comment. - Editor
"If you are interested in saving money, your time and money would be better spent investigating whether another blade will do what you need of it. They are both an expensive blade to buy and an expensive blade to maintain. They gum up and get duller quicker than a typical blade due to atypical side clearance. It seems that the selling point for these blades is smoothness of cut. There are few operations in building furniture where smoothness of cut is an issue. End cuts are usually hidden and edge cuts are usually jointed by jointer or hand plane." - Bill
Almost everything he had to say was soon disputed by others. - Editor
"I don't agree with you. You said: '• and get duller quicker than a typical blade due to atypical side clearance....' My factory-sharpened blade ran seven years. I'm pretty pleased with the service the blade's given me. You then said: 'It seems that the selling point for these blades is smoothness of cut.' Here I do agree with you. The cut that comes off the blade is one of the things that Forrest brags about, and I've learned to completely rely on. Lastly, you said: 'There are few operations in building furniture where smoothness of cut is an issue. End cuts are usually hidden and edge cuts are usually jointed by jointer or hand plane.' Once again, I disagree. You come off the saw and to the jointer or hand plane because that's what you're used to doing. I come off the saw with a Forrest blade and go straight to glue-up, every single time: no jointer, no hand plane. That saves me time, and it allows me to have a much more accurate finished product as I'm consistently cutting to the line, not to the line plus a little bit to allow for future machining. Look, the Forrest may not be for everyone, but frankly, the only folks that I've met that are not believers are the ones who have not spent some time with one. I guess I'm saying not to knock it until you've tried it. I did a lot of research before buying mine, and that included listening to the naysayers. But I found that most of the naysayers had never actually tried one. I'm considering buying another one and have no problem at all spending the money that's asked as I know I'm buying a very good tool." - Rob
"May I share a Forrest blade story? Many years ago, when I was writing for a woodworking magazine, I was asked to do a test on saw blades for an article. Several other woodworkers joined me for a controlled blind test of 60 different saw blades. Each was set up on the same, perfectly tuned saw, and performed a number of cuts in a variety of materials. Each blade was evaluated for ease of cut, then assessed for quality of cut by a different person than did the cutting. When the chart was finished, everyone involved in the test immediately switched to Forrest blades, though none of us had ever used them before the test. The results were that lopsided. Over the years, other companies have come closer to Forrest blades primarily by copying what Forrest does. That was not difficult to discover; the late Jim Forrest was completely open about what made his blades better, and insisted that anyone could do what he did. He was even willing to tell them how. He told me and even gave me permission to print the information in an article. I think Rob said it best. There are things you can do with a great blade (and in my opinion, Forrest makes great blades) that can make a huge difference in how you work, the time you spend, and your results, but that does not mean you should buy something pricey if you don't need that quality, or if you don't see or utilize those differences. Remember, good tools follow the adage, "Tools don't cost money; tools make money." - Michael
Dowels: from
Sawmill Creek
"Is there any science to selecting dowel sizes? Do I use the largest diameter that will fit, or is there a standard amount of wood that should be left un-drilled around the dowel so that it is not too close to faces of the boards?" - Darius
"I don't use dowels in strength applications, but my guess is that you'd size them the same as tenons. For a three-quarter-inch apron, for example, I use a three-eighths-inch tenon. If you were doweling in three-quarter-inch wood, you could use three-eighth-inch dowels because the wood is only thin for a small part of the hole, and the holes are spaced some distance apart. You could even go a bit larger, but five-eighths would probably be too large. If the dowels are for alignment and not for strength, I wouldn't go over half the size of the wood, and could go smaller." - Mike