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This blade, made specifically for cutting fiber cement boards/planks, has lived up to my expectations so far. I use the 7-1/4 only for my circular saw for ripping. I use a Bosch compound miter saw and it literally makes the cut so cleanly, even after hundreds of cuts, that I simply wipe the edge with my hand before nailing the planks up. I've had to make a lot of cuts because of multiple sides, windows etc, and have gone thru several 'certified' Hardie approved (4 tooth) blades, i.e Freud, Irwin, but they DID NOT have PCD (polycrystalline diamond) inserts. If using a compound or chop saw, you will cut thru so fast, with so little dust, for some cuts and having a light breeze to take the dust from you, you'll be tempted to now put the mask on every time. Those blades, while holding up better than a standard carbide blade would, started showing signs of wear after about 30-40 cuts, shooting sparks and such. I'm a homeowner, doing my own re-siding of my home with Hardiboard planks, and I'm only about 2/3 the way done. As promised, and printed on the label of this 10" blade, you can gang together up to 5 planks to cut at one time.and it works flawlessly.
I read about these blades by Hitachi (DeWalt, Makita and others also have them with PCD) and the review/price seemed to make the Hitachi the best value. Good value, doesn't mean cheap.I bought the 7-1/4" and 10" variants of the this Hitachi blade, and have made hundreds of cuts so far, with no signs of degraded cutting ability. No more using a knife to cut away the jagged edges left by poor quality blades.If you're like me, you hate dealing with the dust of cutting fiber cement boards. Not recommended, but a testament to how much less dust these do generate.I'm very happy with this product.
It does cut fiber cement siding crisply and repeatedly. This thing works ok. It is hard to believe it reduces the amount of dust created, as dust is blowing out of the back of the saw as if that were purpose of the operation. My 7" blade cost $6 and this costs $60, they both work equally well. Go figure.
This blade worked exceptionally well, ripping and cross-cutting through HardiBoard like a "hot knife through butter". I am not a professional builder, but I have re-sided one house and recently completed re-siding a portion of my current house with HardiBoard. Previously, I had used a standard "diamond-edged" saw blade, but wore it out quite quickly on HardiBoard. It claims to be "dust reducing", which perhaps it was a little bit, but it still kicked up a significant cloud of dust. You will still want to use an appropriate face mask.
Anyway, the Hardiblade is a fantastic blade and I can't imagine doing it any other way. We were cutting individual shingles from a big stack of hardisoffit material that was 12 ft long, 4 ft wide, and stacked 4 ft tall.
I'm on my third blade now, but have been totally impressed by how long each blade lasts. We cut miles and miles of Hardi material using this blade.
This was using a compound miter saw. We find it's best, or most efficient,to cut 4 or 5 thicknesses each pass.
We tried 6, but it felt too hard on the saw. Thousands and thousands of shingles, each shingle 10 7/8" long, so as to get 13 shingles from each 12-ft board length, and varying in width from 4" to 10".
The cut edges of each shingle only needed a light pass with sandpaper to get the shingle ready for primer and paint.
In no time at all, it was burning on the cuts. Excellent product. I had tried a standard carbide blade when I started my siding project. Don't waste your time and money on a regular carbide blade. This blade was money well spent.
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