Freud Fusion vs. Forrest WWII Blades: Which High End Blade is the Best?
I really enjoy face offs, especially in the world of woodworking
Here’s a face off that showed up in WoodNet in which a member asked the following question: “Freud Fusion vs WWII? Prices about the same - Amazon 20% off each, $50 in Amazon bucks burning a hole in my pocket - What should I do?”
I waded out onto the battle field and counted up the “votes” for each blade… Note that a Freud representative actually joined the fray, though only to answer questions about his blades not to bash Forrest
34 responses later (most comments were not actual votes) I tallied the following:
Forrest WWII: 6
Freud Fusion: 4
I would call this far from conclusive, but if you’re considering dropping upwards of 60-75 on a table saw blade you should definitely read through the post. It’s going to give you an idea of how you can best spend your money.
Check out: Freud Fusion vs WWII? in the WoodNet forum
For some balance I’d also suggest you read Saw Blades from TheWoodshop.20m.com. In it the author states (for those WWII fanatics out there
:
“The primary advantage of the Forrest blade is in its sharpening. Most sharpening services do their final grind/hone at 400 grit. For cabinet making, you really want your blade sharpened and honed to 600 grit. Several sharpening services (Forrest and Ridge to name two) sharpen/hone to 600 grit. As a test, I sent my Systematic blade to Forrest for sharpening and it cut as well as the WWII.”
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Lee Laird Says:
September 15th, 2007 at 1:18 am
I’ve got a Forrest WWII which is on my Saw Stop TS. Cuts are wonderful, but one issue came up while visiting my local Woodcraft. It was brought to my attention that the WWII is shy of a full 10″. So much that the riving knife is slightly proud of the top of the blade. I sent a message to Forrest to see if they would do something to rectify this but no response. Maybe you can get them to respond to you and then relay info to us regular guys. Thanks and keep up the great podcasts.