Oshlun Or Festool Blades?

Posted by 141drew Feb 20, 2020 at 10:10 AM and filed under Reviews & Features

Updated on May 28, 2021 at 11:37 AM

I use my Festool TS 55 track saw just about every day. It came with a general purpose 48-tooth blade that makes fantastically clean cuts and lasts a reasonable amount of time. It does, however, eventually get dull and need resharpening/replacement. They cost $84 each.

Lately, I’ve been cutting a lot of baltic birch ply pre-covered with a WilsonArt laminate. This is challenging for a blade as the laminate is hard on the cutting edge and as soon as that edge dissipates, the laminate itself starts to tear out and crack. This… well, this sucks… but, I saw it as an opportunity to test a more affordable blade – the Oshlun 160048.

The spec sheet of the Oshlun matches that of the Festool, but it comes in at a price of $27. No bad, right?

I’ve been using the Oshlun for a few weeks and it’s too early say how long it will last, but I can say that out of the box, it cuts just as well as the Festool equivalent. I doubt it will last as long, but at $27 each I wouldn’t blame it if it didn’t.

In any case, figured a few of you Festool guys might be interested in this find.

I bought mine here.

See Comments on the forum.

View thread (24 replies)

EZ_Garage

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

Same experience... Oshlun tracksaw blades are a lot cheaper and perform on par with the Festool blades.

LegacyIndustrial

ALLIANCE MEMBER

Feb 20, 2020

Ryan & EZ, which tool would you recommend someone trying to see if the Festool system is a good fit?

General wood-working projects, nothing too fancy.

Appreciate your feedback!

RKA

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

LegacyIndustrial said:
Ryan & EZ, which tool would you recommend someone trying to see if the Festool system is a good fit?

General wood-working projects, nothing too fancy.

Appreciate your feedback!

I'll send you a PM in a sec (don't want to litter Ryan's blade thread).

LegacyIndustrial

ALLIANCE MEMBER

Feb 20, 2020

RKA said:
I'll send you a PM in a sec (don't want to litter Ryan's blade thread).

Your DM was perfect!! Thanks again! :bowdown:

PelicanPines

ALLIANCE MEMBER

Feb 20, 2020

I have an Oshlun dado set that I love... for ripping... I also have a Forrest blade.

EZ_Garage

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

LegacyIndustrial said:
Ryan & EZ, which tool would you recommend someone trying to see if the Festool system is a good fit?

General wood-working projects, nothing too fancy.

Appreciate your feedback!

That's really difficult to answer without more info. I love Festool tools and you would be able to find a lot of green in my shop. With that being said, there are a lot of other brands that have products priced lower, that will perform on par with Festool.

For me it all started with the Domino as it is tool unique to Festool until the patents expire. Once you're in, then they get you hooked on the "system". In a shop with a large cyclone dust collector for stationary tools, I think that there line of dust extractors (I own the MIDI and CT33) are great for portable tools like the Domino and sanders. I have several different sanders from Festool and they all perform well but again there is a lot of competition in that space. This thread is about tracksaws and although I have owned the Festool in the past, my current tracksaw is the Dewalt.

If it was me and I wanted to get my feet wet with Festool, I would probably start with the Domino and a dust extractor. Again without knowing the type of work you do it is hard to answer. A tracksaw is a great tool but there are several choices in the market like Festool, Dewalt, and Makita. Festool sanders are great but again there is a lot of competition... for instance, I think the high end Bosch sanders probably provides more bang for your buck.

Last edited: Feb 20, 2020

RKA

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

Ryan, have you tried making a scoring cut 1mm deep first, then going back for the through cut? I know my other track saw has this scoring feature for delicate surfaces. Unfortunately on the Festool you have to keep changing the depths with each pass. Maybe that will allow you to extend the life of each blade? Sadly, I haven’t used laminates much, so I can’t give you advice from my own experience.

Mecha

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

Laminate specific blades can help. I've had a lot of good luck with combination blades from Diablo as well.

Ryan

Administrator

Staff member

Feb 20, 2020

LegacyIndustrial said:
Ryan & EZ, which tool would you recommend someone trying to see if the Festool system is a good fit?

General wood-working projects, nothing too fancy.

Appreciate your feedback!

I'd be really careful. You can get locked into their ecosystem very quickly and, in my opinion, the only reasonable reason to do that is if you are VERY concerned about dust collection.

That said, if you are... I'd get a midi dust collector, a ts 55 track saw, a track or two, and one of these: https://tsoproducts.com/tso-products-guide-rail-squares/

Vinny

Well-known member

Feb 20, 2020

EZ_Garage said:
For me it all started with the Domino as it is tool unique to Festool until the patents expire.

It's been a while since I looked into it, but isn't that just a biscuit joiner?

neophyte

Well-known member

Feb 21, 2020

Vinny said:
It's been a while since I looked into it, but isn't that just a biscuit joiner?

The Domino is a loose mortise and tenon joiner.
In function, it’s used similar to a Biscuit Joiner, but instead of making semi circular slots that need to have premade biscuits glued in place, it makes slot mortises, that can have free floating solid wood tenons glued in place.
Structurally, the free floating tenons are significantly stronger than biscuits.
The free floating tenons also available in Sipo Wood, which is way more weather resistant than the regular beech wood tenons, and way way more weather resistant than beech wood plywood biscuits, which as far as I’m aware, aren’t even available in a more weather resistant wood.
Since the biscuits are basically just rectangular pieces of wood with a specific thickness and two sides that are rounded, it’s possible to make your own dominoes in shop if you want a different wood species, or are in a pinch and need dominoes when your Festool dealer is closed.
There are now knockdown joints available to be used with the Domino joiner as well.

Ryan

Administrator

Staff member

Feb 21, 2020

The domino is probably my favorite Festool offering... I love the damned thing.

Here's what I'm working on now. The shelves are old, but I ripped out my old built-in desk and built a new one out of Wilson art sandwiched baltic birch. The top is close to 15' long and was done by **** jointing ply using dominos and offsetting the joints (it's two pieces of 3/4" ply thick).

Using my new BF/MFT, it came together incredibly quickly. In fact, all of the machine work was done in just a few hours. If I didn't have to add finish to anything, it would have been done in under a day.

Super happy with it thus far, but still plenty to do.

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kwyjibo

Well-known member

Feb 21, 2020

Dang it Ryan! I just picked up a replacement Festool blade last weekend. I saw the lower cost alternatives but without any real knowledge of them, I went with Festool. I don't like the cost but the original got me this far so I figured the /ft cost isn't so bad. I'll be keeping an eye out for updates on longevity.
And thanks for pointing out the TSO stuff. I'm gearing up to work on projects that need more precision (home furniture, rather than garage cabinets) and these look like a reasonable alternative to the big F.

LegacyIndustrial

ALLIANCE MEMBER

Feb 21, 2020

Ryan said:
I'd be really careful. You can get locked into their ecosystem very quickly and, in my opinion, the only reasonable reason to do that is if you are VERY concerned about dust collection.

That said, if you are... I'd get a midi dust collector, a ts 55 track saw, a track or two, and one of these: https://tsoproducts.com/tso-products-guide-rail-squares/

Thanks. I have a rolling work-bench that I built a few years ago. Has a nice void underneath that would work well with Systainers. Like most addictions you start small and then... :drool:

ALinCarolina

Well-known member

Feb 21, 2020

I have quite a few Festools. The Domino is definitely the most unique. It will change the way you build things.
One of the most surprising Festool though are their random orbit sanders mated to the vacuum dust extractor. It is really amazing how little dust gets loose into the air with this setup.

Ryan

Administrator

Staff member

Feb 21, 2020

ALinCarolina said:
I have quite a few Festools. The Domino is definitely the most unique. It will change the way you build things.
One of the most surprising Festool though are their random orbit sanders mated to the vacuum dust extractor. It is really amazing how little dust gets loose into the air with this setup.

Agreed... I have the Rotex 150... If you only have one sander, this is the one to have... But I found it to be a little too heavy for finish sanding, so I got a ETS 150 off eBay and it does a great job between coats of stuff...

capww8

Well-known member

Feb 27, 2020

Whatever you do, don’t sign up for reconditioned tool notifications... I buy every damned thing that comes up. There are sustainers one my garage that have never been opened, but I’m sure that trim router and planex will come in handy one of these days...

Don’t tell my wife.

mdr

Active member

Mar 3, 2020

Ryan,
Looks very nice. A couple of q's:

It looks like you went for 2 layers of plywood for the desktop. What did you use for glue between the layers? Did you scuff sand?
Are the drawer fronts prefinished?
Did you edgeband them?

Ryan

Administrator

Staff member

Mar 3, 2020

mdr said:
Ryan,
Looks very nice. A couple of q's:

It looks like you went for 2 layers of plywood for the desktop. What did you use for glue between the layers? Did you scuff sand?
Are the drawer fronts prefinished?
Did you edgeband them?

Yeah... I'm gonna do a video on the build, but:

Yes, two layers of 3/4" baltic birch laminated with Titebond III. I sanded the glue surfaces quickly to 160.

The drawers fronts are not edge banded. I'm going for the exposed plywood edge look throughout the whole studio. The fronts are actually laminated with the same WilsonArt laminate that I used for the top and all around the studio...

dnschmidt

Well-known member

Mar 5, 2020

I've been very happy with Oshlun blades of all varieties. I use them on my miter saw and table saw to cut aluminum and on my Milwaukee metal cutting saws both battery and 110V powered. For the money they are simply unbeatable. I also have Forrest and Ridge Carbide which are outstanding but the Oshlun hold their own against these and against Freud/Diablo.

Firebrick43

Well-known member

Mar 6, 2020

https://ridgecarbidetool.com/160mm-ts2000-12-tooth-rip-saw-for-festool-ts55-track-saw.html

While oshlun is a good value blade if you toss them, the ridge has massive size carbide that can be resharpened more times than anything except maybe a Forrest which would be equal to the ridge. Their resharpening service is cheaper and better quality than Forrest as well. 18$ for a resharpening for the above blade.