I bought a cheap brick saw blade and it cost me a whole afternoon

I was working on a garden wall project in Springfield and grabbed a $15 diamond blade from a discount tool store, thinking I'd save a few bucks. Big mistake. It cut maybe ten bricks before it started to slow way down and get super hot. By brick twenty, it was basically just grinding and smoking, and I had to stop completely. I ended up having to drive back into town, buy a proper $60 blade from the supply house, and then recut everything I'd already messed up. All told, I lost about four hours of work and the fifteen bucks I wasted on the junk blade. That cheap price tag really isn't worth the headache. Has anyone found a good mid-range blade brand that holds up for smaller jobs?

3 comments

3 Comments

park.robin1mo ago

Totally get that. I mean, it's so easy to fall for the cheap price up front. My neighbor tried to cut some old patio slabs with a worn out blade he had lying around. The thing was chattering so bad it shot a piece right into his shed door, left a decent dent. He spent more time fixing that and cleaning up dust than if he'd just gotten a new blade first. Sometimes the tool you already have is the most expensive one to use.

hayden4661mo ago

Yeah that's so true. My dad did the same thing with a dull mower blade and ended up replacing a window.

hayden7091mo ago

But honestly I've had the opposite happen too. Grabbed a new blade for a project once and it was worse than the old one, must have been a bad batch or something. Felt like I wasted cash for no real gain, you know? Makes me get why hayden466's dad might have just gone with the dull blade, sometimes new stuff just doesn't work right. I guess it's more about knowing when a tool is actually done for versus just trying to save a buck.