We applaud inventive ideas and progress and it is fun when we see new things. It is just that good ideas don’t always make for a great product. Take the case of the 2-in-1 Spyder Bore Blade: it might have been better left as an idea, since we did not have good success with them on our simple project. For most professionals, when cutting wood, we use a wood blade. When cutting metal, we use a metal blade. And if we are doing plunge cuts, there are specific blades available that do an excellent job at that as well. When you start combining too many different features into one product, this is where things can get tricky because something is going to suffer. We were excited to give the new Spyder Bore-Blade a try to see if it could do all that the company claimed.
Spyder Bore Blade Features
The Spyder Bore blades are designed to fit into any reciprocating saw and are available in 6″, 8″ and 10″ lengths. All blade lengths are available with three different TPI configurations on the top and bottom of the blade. You can typically find them in 3-packs at Lowe’s and other retailers.
- 7 TPI (top)/ 7 TPI (bottom) – Wood Blade
- 0 TPI (top)/7 TPI (bottom) – General Purpose/Wood Blade
- 14 TPI (top)/10 TPI (bottom) – Metal/General Purpose Blade
The intention of the double-edge blade is that it is supposed to allow multi-directional cuts without flipping your saw over or taking the blade out. The rounded tip with teeth is intended to make plunge cuts easier by eliminating the need for pilot holes.
Testing and Use
For our multiple screen door installation project we chose the Metal/General Purpose Blade that has 14 TPI on the top with 10 TPI on the bottom edge. On the first door we had to cut the new aluminum storm door frame to fit the existing entry door frame. To do this we needed to trim approximately 2 inches of material off each of the side frames. Since the Spyder Bore Blade reciprocating saw blade had 14 TPI on the back side, we figured this would be an appropriate use for the blade. With the blade loaded into a cordless 12V Milwaukee Hackzall reciprocating saw, we commenced cutting the aluminum frame material. Actually it was more like we tried cutting the materials. We quickly caught on to one of the inherent problems with putting teeth on the back of an aggressively angled blade. When cutting with a reciprocating blade in the correct direction, the teeth of the blade are always pulling the material towards the shoe of the saw. This is accomplished by the rake angle of the blade in relation to the saw’s shoe or base. What we observed when trying to cut through the metal with the fine teeth on the back side of the saw blade is that there was never that natural drawing of the material towards the shoe. Even when we applied extra pressure to the tool and the blade, it would never “bite” quite right and allow us to complete the cut. Ultimately we just swapped out the Spyder Bore Blade for a standard metal blade and did the cuts in no time.
Our second test of the Spyder Bore Blade was to plunge cut though a piece of 1x pine material to help make a door frame larger so that we could properly install our second storm door. We did the majority of the cuts with a circular saw set to the proper depth, but we needed to complete the cuts into the corners with the reciprocating saw blade. What we found was that, when we used this blade in a Ridgid 18V Cordless reciprocating saw, is that it did a marginal job of removing material in a plunge cut scenario. When we examined the top of the saw blade, it actually had almost a 1/4″ long section where there were no teeth and, to us, it appeared that the teeth are not aggressive enough to really remove material. Again, we found ourselves having to swap out to a dedicated wood reciprocating saw blade that actually had a tip that would dig right into the wood. The large blade tip on the Bore-Blade seems counter-productive when compared to a blade with a finer tip and aggressive teeth that tear into the wood.
Conclusion
The Spyder 2-in-1 Bore Blade might be a reasonable blade for the very occasional user, but we would suggest pros and even casual do-it-yourself folks to just buy the right type of blades for the project they are working on. While the Bore Blade is not a bad idea, we think that it needs some refinement before it can be considered effective at more than just providing straight cuts in wood.
