Impressions: Tenryu Gold Medal Blade
October 23, 2007 | Filed Under Blog
As many of you know, I recently hung up my much-adored Forrest Woodworker II blade in an effort to give another brand a shot. That brand was Tenryu. I have heard great things about their blades and even had a chance to work them on a few occasions. So I was excited to give their products a shot. Specifically the MP-305100AB in my miter saw and the GM-25540 in my table saw.
Let me start by saying the MP-305100AB has found a permanent home in the miter saw. Never have I had such glass smooth cuts from that tool. To be fair though, I upgraded from a stock blade. But what an amazing upgrade it was!
As for the tablesaw blade, I have to say that the blade cuts beautifully. Since my Forrest blade is several years old and has been sharpened a few times (and is in need of sharpening now), a true side by side cut quality comparison was not possible. But I have used my Forrest for years and I am quite familiar with its cut characteristics. And if the Tenryu produced a perceptible difference, I would have spotted it. And to be honest, there wasn’t much difference at all. Of course in a controlled side by side test, with microscopes and lab jackets we might be able to choose a cut quality winner between these two. But seriously folks, in my shop (and most likely yours), both of these blades kick butt and produce top notch cuts. Since the blade is so new, factors like how well the blade holds a sharp edge over time have yet to be determined.
The only real problem I had was that I was under the impression that this was a full-kerf blade. So during the testing, I noticed binding and other indications that this blade had an odd kerf width. Come to find out it is actually being billed as a thin-kerf blade. And it happens to be one of the thickest thin-kerf blades on the market, which is why I didn’t immediately notice the size difference. Unfortunately, this is a deal breaker for me since my setup is for full kerf. Both my splitter and my zero clearance insert would be useless with this blade.
Verdict: Tenryu is a top-notch company that produces a premium blade. The cut quality certainly justifies its cost. If Tenryu could manufacture this blade with a full 1/8″ kerf, they would have a customer for life.
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22 Responses to “Impressions: Tenryu Gold Medal Blade”
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April 2002, Fine Woodworking magazine did a comparison of 10″ combination blades. The Forrest Woodworker II came out on top with three or four blades that were runner up but the Tenryu GM-25540 was an average performer.
Walker
Marc,
Any chance you could give the Freud Fusion a try before we all jump on the wagon and buy one?
I can believe the nickel test was a nice marketing hook (that was my first reaction when I heard it).
And good to hear about the issues of switching to a thinner kerf — I’d often wondered about how people were switching between full and thin kerf blades, as it would seem to be a big hassle to get a different thickness splitter (I’d noticed the Sharkguard system was available with different thicknesses, for example)
I’d be interested if Tenryu has a suggestion for the splitter.
Matt
Marc, I appreciate your candor. The thing is that I wouldn’t have left Forrest even if the blade had cut better. Forrest not only offers an excellent blade but they have outstanding customer service. They make re-sharpening very easy and the returned blade will actually cut like a new one. Furthermore, they can replace broken teeth or do any special modifications. For example, I have a Laguna TSS Table saw that uses a 12” blade on a 5/8” arbor—fairly unusual. Forrest can even support the European arbor sizes. I haven’t tried it yet, but I understand they can sharpen Festool blades as well – I will be sending them one shortly. Anyway, Forrest is one of those companies that just ranks very high in my book just like Festool, Powermatic, Incra, Bridge City Tools, Pfeil, Whiteside, CMT, Leigh, Veritas, Lie-Nielsen, etc… All companies that I’m sure you are very familiar with.
An excellent review. I am surprised that the kerf is non-standard as this has a huge impact on safety and cost as you outlined. Thank you for the safety consideration and I hope Tenryu pick up on this blog for the same reason.
Cheers Marc!
Why did you assume the blade would be quieter? Do they advertise it to be so? where you measuring the db while running a board through the machine or just the machine on and running? To me clicking on the side of it with a nickle tells me nothing other than the material its made of is probably more dense. Ussually balance and teeth angle have more to do with sound doesn’t it?
Marc
Just when I had thought with all the ads on your site lately, that you had gone totally corporate, you go and prove me wrong! I love your honesty and candor regarding your feelings about this blade. Just this past weekend I had the WW2 blade in my hands ready to buy it, but I put it down thinking I would wait to see what your results were regarding the Tenryu. Now I feel certain that the WW2 is the right blade for me…..and with the cost of these blades hovering around $100 bucks, it’s no drop in the bucket to buy a bad blade. Thanks for an honest review.
David
P.S. How about a contest to give away a free PM2000? ;)
LOL Brad….corporate. If we were corporate then I claim the title President and CEO! Marc let the record show on 10:35am on Oct 24, 2007, I assumed the roll of president/ceo of our corporation. Is it technically a corporation when there are only 2 people? :)
You can have a corporation of just 1 person!
I believe the nickel test was meant to demonstrate the “harmonics” of the blade relating to vibration, and how it will respond to harmonic excitation. I believe they are trying to infer that the blade has inherent dampening characteristics that will reduce vibration. It may be a gimmick, I am not sure.
Yes, what Rolf said! :)
That was my impression as well.
Since I wear hearing protections, the blade noise is never an issue. But for some people I suppose it might be.
To me it sounds like a gimmick that is why I am curious.
Marc-
How about the blade you used for your miter saw? Do you think that would be acceptable in a RAS? I’ve been told that a negative hook angle is more preferable- would you say that the MP-25560CB would be more appropriate?
Thanks for the in-depth analysis. That is great info that will really help with our buying decisions (more stuff than I ever would have even considered).
Well done, Marc!
I thought the kerf issue would lead to problems.
Besides, I have problems enough dimensioning stock without having to worry about mentally removing 0.14″ because mthe measurements on my saw are set up for a 1/8″ kerf.
If you are looking for a truly quieter blade you should look at the H. O. Schumacher blades.
They have a unique design to the teeth that cuts noise significantly. Look at their website for more info on their design, but it does work. I was skeptical until I got a blade at an industrial woodworking and compared it to my Forrest and Freud blades.
And the best part is that the cut quality is on par with Forrest and Freud and at about 1/2 the price.
I buy my H. O. Schumacher blades from Leitz, who are great to deal with and much more knowledgeable about cutting tools that your regular woodoworking store
I can understand not keeping the blade yourself because of the kerf issue, but to those of use for whom it isn’t an issue, what is the problem?
By that logic, you would have to recommend against every thin kerf blade ever made because it will cause the same two problems.
I’ve always used a riving knife appropriate for a thin kerf anyway. So the real question is whether I want to get a new zci or widen my thin-kerf one if I intend to stick to the blade.
Actually that’s not accurate Doug. Thin kerf blades are perfectly fine when paired with the appropriate thin kerf splitter and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend that setup. The same goes for full kerf blades. The Tenryu blade, however, is neither thin kerf nor full kerf. Its somewhere in the middle. That means there is no commercially available splitter intended for that size blade. You either have a tight fit with the full kerf splitter or a loose fit with the thin kerf splitter. Neither of which is an acceptable setup in my shop and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I told you it was. Of course, we all have to make the final decision for what qualifies as “safe enough” for our shops. But with just about every other blade on the market conforming to the standard full and thin kerf sizes, I feel the Tenryu is at a severe disadvantage because of the seemingly “minor” detail in their manufacturing process.
Marc,
I would like to point out that Tenryu makes a lot of blades with different kerfs. The selection of widths is quite limited in the gold medal blade however, if you look into the Rapid Cut Series blades you will find a much wider (LOL - pun intended) choice. There are a number of blades with kerf widths of 0.125″ - 0.126″ from which to choose. You may want to check out the RS-25550 or RS-25550-2 blades which should work with your splitter and ZCI.
Hello Marc,
I just wanted to leave a little note to say thank you to you and your readers for the comments and feedback. We are paying attention and appreciate the comments.
Thanks again
Iain Goodridge
TENRYU America, Inc.
Hebron, KY
Sorry - still don’t see the issue with the riving knife, except to say you obviously don’t want an RK that is wider than the blade.
First of all, you are just plain wrong when you say there are industry standard for kerfs. Check out:
http://www.woodmagazine.com/wo.....Retest.pdf
In both the thick and thin categories there is considerable difference. The thinnest is 0.090 all the way up to 0.134
I’d suggest that after several sharpenings, the difference will increase. Then of course, there is blade runout. Simply put, if you ever change blades, you are going to experience some variation
2nd, RKs have even less standardization and tend to be approximate anyway. I personally use a sharkguard (http://www.leestyron.com/sharksplitter.php) made from 13 gauge steel that ends up at approx .090 after powder-coat.
As Lee points out, the deeper the RK, the less critical the RK thickness is (so long as it isn’t too thick).
What exactly is the concern? There is a 0.021 difference between the blade and my RK. The gap between the RK and the blade is approx 1/8″. Are you really saying a board is going to bind on that and kick back? Sorry, but the physics of the equation just don’t add up.
You are right that safe enough in our own shop is up to us, but I think you are chasing ghosts here. Have an RK? Check. Keep the guard on for all through cuts? Check. Got a sharp, clean blade? Check. Wear eye protection? Check. Just confirmed that my setup is safer than probably 98% of home shops? Check.
Doug. I was originally under the impression that this blade was full-kerf. That is was I was led to believe. When I did a little digging, I also saw that it was thicker than the vast majority of thin-kerf blades on the market. So from my perspective, it seemed like this blade was somewhere in between full and thin kerf. And since I don’t have a thin kerf splitter to experiment with, I didn’t feel comfortable recommending a blade that was thicker than the standard thin kerf splitter (at least thicker than most others on the market). So it was too tight for the full-kerf splitter, and potentially too loose for the thin kerf splitter.
This blade could very well work nicely with a thin-kerf splitter, but how much of a gap is too much? I don’t know. You don’t know. But when I have thousands of people reading my advice, I need to be on the safe side with my recommendations.