12″, 80 Tooth Miter Saw Blade
[This is part of my Molding Installation Tool Kit series.]
A good blade for your 10″ or 12″ miter saw is just as important as the saw itself.
Most miter saws come with a general purpose blade, so you’ll need to replace your original blade with a finish blade, like this 80-tooth Kobalt blade I bought from Lowes Home Improvement.
Until now I’ve been cutting moldings with the general-purpose blade that came with the used, Rigid miter saw I bought for Our Molding Makeover, just so I could show you what can be done with the most basic of tools.
This Kobalt is a good upgrade for the money, and will cut your moldings just fine.
For me it will be a significant upgrade, and I’ll be so happy to start using it on my next molding project — building a valance box (pelmet) for our master bedroom. (Read this post by Jennifer to find out why we started this project right now.)
Price and Specs
- Unit Price $40.00
- Size 12″
- Tooth Count 80
- Material Carbide Tipped
- Vendor Lowes Home Improvement
Even Better Blades
If you want an even better blade, then you can spend two-three times more money on these other high-quality saw blade brands:
- AGE
- Bosch
- Diablo
- Freud
- Systematic
- Tenryu
Learn More About Miter Saw Blades
If you want to learn more about miter saw blades, there are many well-written articles and woodworking forum discussions on the subject. A quick search will turn up enough results to keep you busy reading for a few hours.
For our purposes, this simple upgraded saw blade will be such a welcome change from my old blade, that I’ll think I’ve died and gone to perfect-miter heaven!
My new 80-tooth blade on the left compared to my old general purpose miter saw blade right.
Related Posts
How to Install Moldings (This is the BIG series!)
How to Install WAINSCOTING-109 for About $11.00/ft
Twenty-One Pieces of Moldings (You can do this!)
I have a Festool Kapex mitre saw – it comes with 250 (10″) 60 tooth blade which works well. But the one that scares the bejsus out of me is the CMT blade I have in my table saw – again it’s a 250 mm, but now 40 tooth, but has cutting width of 1.5mm (1/16″) as opposed to the Kapexe’s 3mm (1/8″) – The CMT blade cuts wood like butter and leave hardly any breakout – very important for trim work, it also tends not to grab the workpiece but it’s evil…how can a blade be evil…get one and you will see…so when my Kapex blade becomes ready for replacement, I will will replace with the CMT blade. I think this is the blade http://www.cmtutensili.com/show_items.asp?pars=SB~213-214~2
Thanks for the tip, Tom.
Ken,
I am planning on installing Baseboard-100 this weekend and will be using my miter and table saws to cut and rip MDF. Do you still recommend the higher-end 80-tooth blade for cutting MDF molding?
Thanks! Love the site.
Jim
Yes, absolutely use a sharp, 80-tooth blade if you have a choice about it. I felt the pain of using that general-purpose blade with every piece of moldign I cut for our kitchen and half-bathroom.
Let us know how you like using the 80 thooth when your finished installing your baseboard.
Good luck!