Freud LU86R006M20: 160mm Thin Kerf General Purpose Blade

Added this to my festoon track saw. Works great

I am a contractor and I can honestly say that I exclusively purchase Freud blades for my power tools. They are the best IMHO. All Freud products are top notch.

I have two of these, one on the saw and a second one to install while the first is out for sharpening. These blades perform very well. Rip smooth enough to edge join and cross cut very good too. A most useful combination blade for wood and it cuts a lot of wood and sheet goods before needing sharpening. Not an inexpensive blade but I think a worthwhile buy.

It is a fine blade, but it is by no means a match to Festool OEM blade. I went through two Freud blades, one other brand's compatible blade, and now I am on my second OEM blade on my TS55. The first observation is that Festool blades stay sharp much longer than Freud. I would dare say that Festool blade easily lasts 2-3 times longer than the Freud blade, which essentially cancels out any price advantage. The second observation is that Freud blade tend to deflect much more when cutting thick wood. Just recently, I had to cut a thick maple board (still withing the thickness range of TS55) very close to the edge to eliminate the curvature. Freud blade, almost new, could not do this job, it felt like it could not bite into that near-edge area and kept on sliding off it (which is most likely caused by lower thickness of this blade, it is even called "thin"). I swapped the blade to Festool and all problems were gone, Festool blade was stiff and rock solid. I appreciate the lower cost and competition to Festool, but I think I am done with "lower cost" substitutes. They turn out to be not real cost savings long term, and they cannot always do the job correctly. The most valuable use for a cheaper blade that I can think about is if you need to cut wood with embedded nails and know that you will like kill the blade quickly. In this case, price is the primary factor. Also, for things like plywood, it works OK. Quality of cut is not as good as with Festool's blades, though.

Works well with my Dewalt and my cordless Makita cordless track saws. It will cut just the tiniest sliver more from your splinter guard than the stock DeWalt blade and the same with the Makita stock blade. It doesn’t seem to affect accuracy when going back and forth from the Dewalt or Makita blades on the same track. The difference is so small that it’s not noticeable to me. I notice more inaccuracies from blade deflections and saw body flex when bevel cutting and pushing the saw too hard or else not keeping the track guide tolerance slightly to the tight side of adjustment. As far as the diameter of this blade compared to the 165mm DeWalt and Makita blades I don’t notice a difference in the dewalt saw since the depth gauge accounts for the track and still works accurately with the smaller blade. If I set the DeWalt depth adjustment on the saw for 1/2” (12mm) it will cut through that size fo stock material by about 1-2mm with this blade. With a 165mm blade it actually goes closer to 4mm beyond the material. The Makita saw’s scoring feature might not work with this smaller blade but I never seem to use that anyway, I just keep my blades clean and sharp. These have a large carbide bit for each tooth like an industrial blade and they’re very sharp. The coating helps a lot with resin build up compared to the stock blades that both of my saws came with. In turn the blades run cooler and don’t tend to warp. I hope this review is helpful.

great quality product worth the price and fast shipping

I was a bit appalled by the high prices of Festool blades. I realize I bought a BMW of saws, but I didn't want to get taken to the cleaners for every single blade. I needed a quick and fast blade for ripping plywood, so I went with a 24 tooth thin kerf blade. WHOA. I can rip just about as fast as I can push the saw on the track. Saw makes no grunting noise, there's very little load on it since this blade is so sharp and aggressive. I blasted through 3/4 birch with no hesitation, and STILL got a clean up cut on the other side of the blade kerf. If I had used these with the sacrificial splinter-guard it would have been a clean line. Considering the price of this blade, I am completely satisfied. You can spend as much as you want on the Festool blades, but I can buy these 3 to 1, and have them resharpened for almost nothing, giving me years of fine cuts for next to nothing. I'm now looking at the 48 tooth blades, I might kick Festools blade completely out of this saw.

We really, really like our Festool TS 55 saw system. Not so much their pricing on blades and parts. These blades from Freud fit well, cut well, and are priced right. We own a bunch.

This blade is much better than the stock makita blades. It's a beauty. Great life span. Get this over the Makita blade all day.