working with teak

[beebeenator]

I am starting this thread in the hopes that i dont ruin my machines and other forum members are informed.

I found two things about teak today based on reading

1.) Its a pain in the ars* hardwood. In such a way that it dulls knives real good and the oil in the wood does something funny too. It has silica. Imagine, silica used to be the traditional sandpaper....


2.) secondly , it is considered toxic. Highly allergy inducing stuff. Silixa has something to do with this too. Silica has a slight toxicity.

The closest thing to silica that we can compare to is the horsetail plant. A perennial bog/swamp plant that looks like mini bamboos. It is very common in Plant shops. If you touch the stems (which are actually leaves i think) its semi rough. I used some to sand before just to test the "trivia" of it being a sandpaper :)

I am hoping some other folks can contribute to this as well, (Guad, you've worked in teak na diba?)

I will be changing my 100 teeth blade in my TS to 40 teeth just so i dont bog the motor and burn the wood :)

[beebeenator]

crosscut a teak with a cms, felt like any other wood... well.. its only crosscutting.

Will rip joint one tomorrow... now that i re-installed the splitter, guard and readjusted the fence and shimmed the zero clearance insert. Not to mention cut a notch in the zci to allow for the splitter to slide in and grinded the ears on the splitter to fit in the zci

[guad]

Guad, you've worked in teak na diba?

Haven't used teak yet. Though I am looking for gmelina (a.k.a. white teak) in small quantities not truckloads.

If teak dulls blades, I wonder which does so faster, teak or MDF.

[beebeenator]

ohhhh mdf dulls as well? never knew that. Well my CS did take a harder effort than usual to pass through mdf

[violaine]

surprised to read that mdf dulls carbides? my makita 5806B went tru a lot of mdf cutting very recently..about 8 sheets in all and very recently, needed to cut a whole sheet into 3 and 2cm strips but still the edges of these strips remain crisp..touched the edges of the carbides as well and they are sharp as before..im sure since i bought the cs, it never crossed any salvaged lumber with embedded nails.

or the kind of mdf? i am using the locally available 8mm and 18mm malaysia made.

should it be true then its another point to consider when charging commissioned works.

[timber715]

that is a fact that MDF dulls carbide blades faster than reg wood. it is due to the chemicals in the MDF that do this. that is a good reason to get CS and ts blades for MDF and laminates...

[beebeenator]

been joint ripping a teak on my TS since the Jimmy Jig is now fully working

I was using a 40 tooth blade that came with the TS. Take note the blade was almost never used and was only installed in the saw since I didnt want my 100 tooth blade ripping hardwood.

It was sloooooooow ripping a 2 inch thick teak. I as i fed the stock i felt the lack of power and/or struggle of the TS.

I ripped timberco lauan also .. it was no problem.

I will be getting new blades tomorrow since i also suspect that the carbide tip has dulled a little since it did scrape the splitter knife for a few seconds a week ago.

but comparing it to ripping lauan .. it was really tough.

Oh, its also of no surprise, the wood is noticeably oilyish. So at least i know i got real teak :)

[timber715]

try cleaning the blades first Ben...

[beebeenator]

ahh yes.. I will do that.

I dont have anything i can use except thinner. and WD40.Would that be sufficient?