Knowing and understanding how your miter saw works is key in helping you with your carpentry needs. However, you’ll need to also maintain your miter saw; and that requires knowledge on how to change a miter saw blade!
When do you Change a Miter Saw Blade?
There are only a few reasons for it to become essential for you to change the blade on your miter saw. However, it’s key for you to know that if those reasons arise; it is necessary for you to change the blade!
The most common reason for having to change your miter saw blade is a dull blade. A dull blade will cause your saw to leave an increased number of burns on your pieces of wood. However, it’s pretty easy to catch it. Not to mention, if your blade is worn out, you’ll also notice more sawdust and wood chips being formed as a result.
You might also need to cut different materials from time to time, and this also requires you to change your blades. The blade you currently have on your miter saw blade might be good for cutting wood, but it definitely won’t do the job for steel. Thus, different materials also require different blades.
You’ll also need a changing of blades depending on the number of teeth your miter saw blade has. Sometimes you’ll want your pieces to be cut rough and fast versus some being cut slow and accurately. This is where the Teeth Per Inch (TPI) comes into play. Thus, you’ll need to make sure you have the correct TPI for the job you want done.
How to Change a Miter Saw Blade
Now, let’s dive into the proper details of how you change a miter saw blade. We stress that throughout this entire process ensuring your safety is of the utmost importance. The Miter Saw is a very dangerous tool if not handled with caution, especially when you’re guiding the blade.
Cutting Off Power
This is a very simple and obvious step when it comes to this process. Just to avoid any sort of mishap while you’re carrying out this process, make sure your miter saw has been turned off completely. If while working, you accidentally hit a button, you don’t want your saw powering up and the teeth of the blade to cause any accidents. So, safety first!
Removing the Blade Guard
Once your miter saw is turned off completely, it’s time to begin removing the blade. Pull the blade guard of your miter saw open, and loosen the screw on the hardware. Once it’s loosened, you can pull the whole mechanism backwards, while leaving the blade in the same spot. This will also allow you to access and wrench the blade mounting bolt.
Locking the Blade
Now, you’ll need to lock your blade down for what you’ll be doing a little further down the line. To lock your blade in place, there are a couple of different ways.
If your miter saw has a blade locking pin, locate it and then press down on it. As you do so, rotate your blade around and wait for it to lock in. You’ll feel a slight jolt as it does so.
If your miter saw does not come with an in-built blade locking pin, you can place down a piece of wood underneath the saw, as shown in the picture above. After this, push your blade down onto the piece of wood, so that it doesn’t rotate once you’re trying to wrench the blade out of the saw.
Removing the Blade
Now that you have locked the blade in position, it’s time for you to remove the blade from the miter saw. Remember that blade mounting bolt you uncovered? Take your screwdriver, and start removing it. To remove the bolt, you’ll need to spin it out of place with a clockwise motion.
You can then remove the bolt out of the area, and also remove the blade flange (just a cover between the blade and the bolt). Then simply use your hand to carefully remove the blade out of its position. If you’re just starting out, make sure to use gloves for this part, as the blades are really sharp and could hurt you (or do this always, never hurts to be safe)!
Replacing your blade
Once you’ve done all of this, it’s just a matter of fixing it all back up again. The only thing to keep in mind when doing this, is to make sure you turn your screws and the bolt in the opposite direction!
Always make sure to put your blade guard back over, to make sure you’re safe from any injuries from the saw. There you go! Now you know how to remove a blade from your miter saw, and can replace it with a new blade whenever needed!
The Takeaway
We hope this article helped you learn how to change a miter saw blade all by yourself! The reasons may differ on why you need one; whether it be for more teeth per inch (TPI), or just to acquire a new blade! However, you should gain the most knowledge you can about what the best miter saw blade is for your miter saw! Not only will it give you the best cut, but allow you to feel satisfied using your saw.
Hey there, my name’s Braden Smith and all my lifeI’ve been passionate about woodworking. As such, I spent more time learning about and experimenting with power tools. Over time, I learned to help spread my knowledge by articulating my words thanks to my academic knowledge in the English Language as well.