Storing larger 10" and 12" table saw and mitre saw blades can be a bit of a hassel. I have a number of table saw blades and I change blades quite frequently depending on the job I am doing so finding blades is a common task.
Almost every power saw blade these days is tipped with Carbide. The reason for using carbide is that it is very hard and it resists heat very well, and that is why carbide retains it's sharp edge for a long time. The problem with Carbide is that because it is a crystaline type of structure, it can ... and does, fracture easily if bumped against another carbide tipped blade or bumped against steel. (for example, laying a carbide tipped blade down on top of your steel-topped table saw can often chip or even knock a carbide tooth off, and once this happens, blades should NOT be used as they are now dangerous, ALWAYS lay carbide tipped blades down on softer materials like wood, cardboard or some other softer material)
This is why it is important to have a good safe place to store you power tool, table saw and mitre saw blades, and either plastic or wood are idea. If you have a number of blades, a quick glance will tell you which one you need to grab and install on your power tool, so being able to see all your blades at the same time is beneficial.
The storage rack in this video is a similar design to one that I saw a few years ago in a magazine. I thought then that it was an easy design and would be usefull to have something similar. It does take a bit of time to figure out an exact design that will work best for your blades, but when you do, you will have a life-time of use.
The angle of the blades needs to be such that you can see the tooth structure of the blades, but also the blades need to be easy to remove from the rack without fear of bumping others on the way in or out. The more vertical the blades, the easier they are to see, and less room they take up, but then they get harder to remove and replace from the rack. I found that about thirty degrees was best for my needs.
I also needed to make sure ALL my blades would fit on the rack, including my dado blades AND the chippers that go with them. This meant that the vertical holder parts needed to be no more than six inches apart, otherwise the chippers would not stay in place. When I test the larger ten inch blades for stability I found that even the larger blades were quite stable in the six inch wide spacing.
All of slots in the holder two side holder parts needed to wide enough to hold even my thickest blade. I did not want to have some slots wide and other narrow. This would lead to more frustration in that some blades would only fit in some slots. Not good enough, I wanted every blade to be able to fit in every slot, so each slot needed to be suitably sized.
Once I was satisfied with a design, I drew out the design on one side of one of the upright pieces. I wanted both upright pieces to be cut exactly the same so the best way to do this was to clamp them together to make the cuts. The cuts on the vertical pieces can be made several ways, such as on a radial arm saw, a sliding miter, a table saw, cut by hand or using a band saw. I opted to use the band saw because I felt is would be the safest, and if I wanted to modify the size of the cuts, i.e. make them a bit wider, the bandsaw would lend it'self easiest to that.
Since the blade rack only has three pieces, the final piece is the backing piece. I used plywood for this, but before just cutting any old piece of plywood, I measured what would be an ideal width, that would not only hold all my 10: blades safely, but will also hold the chippers from my dado set. In my case, piece of plywood that was 6 inches wide and as long as the the two uprights was idea. It securly holds the 10" blades and is narrow enough to hold dado chippers too.
I don't have plans, but the dimensions of the version I made are:
Sides - 3/4" x 4" x 36"
Back - 1/2" x 7" x 36"
Slots - cut 30 degrees, cut at 2-1/2" intervals
After mounting the rack on the wall, I found it was quick and easy to idenify blades, and they were all nicely spaced so getting them in and out of the rack was easy and safe.
Build your own rack and save yourself time, space and frustration by having well made blade rack in your workshop
Copyright Colin Knecht
woodworkweb.com