Infinity Miter Max and Ultra Smooth Blades — and the Amazon Alternative

Infinity Cutting Tools sells its Miter Max and Ultra Smooth blades direct through infinitytools.com rather than through Amazon. They are good blades and worth ordering if that is specifically what you want. This page is about what makes a mitre saw blade different, and the Amazon-buyable blade that does the same job.

Hi-ATB is the specification that matters

On a mitre, the cut face is the show face. What ruins it is chipping along the top edge, where teeth exit the surface.

ATB — alternate top bevel — grinds each tooth at an angle, so the corners of the teeth score the surface fibres before the body of the tooth removes the waste. Hi-ATB takes that bevel steeper still. The corners act like knives, severing the fibres cleanly, and the top edge stays crisp even in veneered stock and painted MDF architrave.

The cost of a steep bevel is fragility: those sharp corners are the first thing to chip if the blade meets a nail.

Tooth count and hook angle

Eighty teeth on a 12 in blade is a fine-finish count. Combined with the low or negative hook angle typical of mitre saw blades, the teeth approach the work more gently — important on a chop saw, where a positive-hook blade tends to grab the work and pull it down and forward.

That is why a table saw blade should not be fitted to a mitre saw, even when the arbor matches.

Feed rate is the whole technique

Eighty teeth cannot clear much material per pass. Push a 12 in mitre saw through 4 in of hardwood at speed and the blade will heat, burn the face and possibly stall.

Let the saw come up to speed, lower it steadily, and pause at the bottom of the cut for a moment before lifting. Mitres in hardwood take a few seconds longer than you expect, and rushing them is the only thing between this blade and a perfect face.

Watch for metal

Reclaimed timber, skirting being replaced, and anything ex-site may contain nails or staples. One contact chips a tooth, and from then on every cut carries a small witness mark. Keep a cheap blade for demolition work.