Pacific Saw Blades Review
A saw blade brand with unclear availability. What actually determines cut quality in a blade, and what to buy.
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Pacific-branded saw blades have not had a consistent retail presence, and there is no reliable path to buy them. That matters more for blades than for most tools, because a good blade is meant to be resharpened — and a sharpening relationship with a brand that has disappeared is not a relationship.
What actually determines a cut
Tooth count. More teeth means a smaller bite per tooth, a cleaner cut and more heat. Fewer teeth means faster feed and more gullet room to clear waste. That is why an 80-tooth blade crosscuts beautifully and burns in a rip, and a 24-tooth blade rips freely and leaves a torn crosscut.
A 40-tooth blade is the compromise almost everyone settles on for a general-purpose table saw blade.
Grind. ATB (alternate top bevel) teeth are angled left and right in turn, which slices the fibres at the edge of the kerf and gives a clean crosscut. Flat-top teeth chisel out the waste and rip fast. Combination grinds mix them. A triple-chip grind, with a chamfered tooth alternating with a flat one, is for laminates and non-ferrous metal, not timber.
Kerf. A thin-kerf blade removes less material, so it needs less power — a real advantage on a saw with a small motor. The cost is stiffness: a thin blade deflects more and wants a stabiliser on long rips.
Plate quality. The part nobody can see and the part that separates blades. A flat, tensioned, properly balanced plate runs true and cuts straight. A cheap plate wobbles, and no tooth geometry compensates for that.
The thing most people get wrong
Blades go dull long before they look dull. If you are feeding harder than you used to, or getting burn marks you did not get before, the blade is blunt. A blunt blade is also a kickback risk, because you are pushing harder into a blade that is resisting.
Cutting MDF and melamine dulls carbide dramatically faster than solid timber. Keep a cheap blade for sheet goods and a good one for timber.
What to buy
The Forrest Woodworker II, 10in 40-tooth, linked below, is the blade that keeps getting named when people ask this question. It is expensive. It is also resharpenable many times by a company that will do it, which changes the cost calculation entirely over a decade.
If you cut mostly plywood, MDF and melamine, buy a cheaper 60- or 80-tooth blade and treat it as a consumable. A premium blade in abrasive board is money burned.
What works
- Forty-tooth ATB grind crosscuts cleanly and still rips without burning, so one blade covers most of a project
- Thin kerf takes less power, which matters on a contractor saw with a modest motor
- Can be resharpened many times, so the cost per year of service is far lower than the sticker suggests
What doesn't
- Expensive enough that it is hard to justify if you cut mostly sheet goods and abrasive man-made board