I talked a bit about this on another thread, but as I've done a lot more since then thought I'd start a thread about it. I got a big ancient Makita 5402NA four or five years ago for $300 all told that had the original OEM non-carbide type blade, and it was never great at cutting thick hardwood even when resharpened. Often tried to use it on rough warped wood and would bind up easily and smoke on a lot of deep cuts. Sort of accepted it probably was limited to beam cutting being so underpowered for such a huge blade. Hadn't wanted to spring for a $100+ Freud blade I worried would have too much flex. Then I found a very reasonably priced Tenryu 16" carbide tipped blade - $78 - which said it worked well with the Makita so I took a chance on because my last $120 12" Tenryu blade I bought for my table saw was outstanding. Tenryu moved their line of more affordable blades to China production almost 30 years ago, but they still make quality there every bit as good or better than Freud Diablo blades. Trimmed a bunch of 4-6" thick cottonwood/poplar slabs with it, and finally that big saw works like I always wanted it to. Slow to be sure, but so nice and smooth and doesn't bind and bog anymore.
Still thought it might not work so great with real hardwood, but then went through a big stack of 24-28" long, 4.5" thick Arizona ash square-ish blocks with it that I'd let dry badly after milling them last year. Needed to saw a bunch of them in half where they'd warped bad around the pith, and trim the edges of all of them. As bad as the warp was on some, I never bogged down, had it bind up, or popped the breaker once going through all of them. Still has barely seemed to dull at all yet. There are more efficient ways to make beams and lumber, but if you have no bandsaw mill, and work on the cheap like me chainsaw milling and don't want to waste a ton of wood with the thick kerf of chainsaw milling your slabs to dimensional lumber, or just to neatly trim mantels and the occasional big beam, it's a pretty good tool to have with the right blade if you can pick an old one up cheap. Way better results than any of those beamcutter attachments for circular saws. The Makita is an awkward huge beast to handle but fairly indestructible. The Sawsquatch 16 5/16 seems more ergonomic and better value new. With the old blade I had come to doubt it had been worth buying and thought I should have gotten a 10 1/4 saw in the first place - I eventually got one - which could do nearly 4" cuts. But I have my 10 1/4" Bigfoot in a universal track saw setup that limits its max depth to 2 7/8", so I needed a way of trimming more than 3" deep slabs and didn't feel like getting another 10 1/4 saw just for 3-4" thick slabs. Now I've got something to rip things 3-6" deep and happy with how it works.
Don't have a router sled flattening table at the moment as I dismantled my old shoddy one, so have had good luck flattening one side of everything roughly by hand with my 3 1/4 power planer, and running everything up to 15 3/4 wide through my regular planer to a super smooth finish. Have a woodworker buddy up in Austin w a 25" Woodmaster I'll trade some excess wood to and flatten a lot of my 15-25" slabs there one of these days. My eventual ideal as much as creating a router flattening table is to make a chainsaw leveling table that I can rig up the Alaskan mill to run on like a bridge saw. Far quicker leveling than with a router and pretty clean finish with lo pro chain.
Still thought it might not work so great with real hardwood, but then went through a big stack of 24-28" long, 4.5" thick Arizona ash square-ish blocks with it that I'd let dry badly after milling them last year. Needed to saw a bunch of them in half where they'd warped bad around the pith, and trim the edges of all of them. As bad as the warp was on some, I never bogged down, had it bind up, or popped the breaker once going through all of them. Still has barely seemed to dull at all yet. There are more efficient ways to make beams and lumber, but if you have no bandsaw mill, and work on the cheap like me chainsaw milling and don't want to waste a ton of wood with the thick kerf of chainsaw milling your slabs to dimensional lumber, or just to neatly trim mantels and the occasional big beam, it's a pretty good tool to have with the right blade if you can pick an old one up cheap. Way better results than any of those beamcutter attachments for circular saws. The Makita is an awkward huge beast to handle but fairly indestructible. The Sawsquatch 16 5/16 seems more ergonomic and better value new. With the old blade I had come to doubt it had been worth buying and thought I should have gotten a 10 1/4 saw in the first place - I eventually got one - which could do nearly 4" cuts. But I have my 10 1/4" Bigfoot in a universal track saw setup that limits its max depth to 2 7/8", so I needed a way of trimming more than 3" deep slabs and didn't feel like getting another 10 1/4 saw just for 3-4" thick slabs. Now I've got something to rip things 3-6" deep and happy with how it works.
Don't have a router sled flattening table at the moment as I dismantled my old shoddy one, so have had good luck flattening one side of everything roughly by hand with my 3 1/4 power planer, and running everything up to 15 3/4 wide through my regular planer to a super smooth finish. Have a woodworker buddy up in Austin w a 25" Woodmaster I'll trade some excess wood to and flatten a lot of my 15-25" slabs there one of these days. My eventual ideal as much as creating a router flattening table is to make a chainsaw leveling table that I can rig up the Alaskan mill to run on like a bridge saw. Far quicker leveling than with a router and pretty clean finish with lo pro chain.
