Been noticing a lot of folks on job sites cutting pressure treated lumber with their regular framing blades and just burning through them in a day.

I watched a guy at a deck build in Raleigh last month destroy a $40 blade in under 2 hours because he didn't switch to a carbide tipped one for the treated wood, and when I told him he just shrugged it off like it was normal, has anyone else seen this kind of thing getting worse or is it just me?

2 comments

2 Comments

nelson.wren10h ago

I was on a job in Apex last week where a crew burned through three blades in one day on a cedar deck. They kept using a cheap 24-tooth rip blade and it was just screaming through that treated stuff, sparks flying everywhere. What kills me is they could have grabbed a $20 carbide tipped blade from Home Depot and made it last the whole week, but they just kept swapping out those junk ones like it was a normal cost of doing business. I think part of the problem is nobody wants to stop and change blades mid-job, so they just let them get dull until the saw starts smoking. It's wild how common this is now, especially with all the wet pressure treated wood coming out of the mills these days (you know the stuff, it's heavy as heck).

elliot_roberts6h ago

Man you just made me rethink my whole setup honestly. I used to be one of those guys who'd run a blade until it was completely smoked because stopping felt like wasting time. But after reading this I grabbed a decent carbide tip blade and suddenly my saw doesn't scream at me anymore.