Special blades: A plywood blade is made for cutting plywood with a minimum of splintering. Nail-cutting blades which rip through old lumber and slice through nails and other metal where encountered are distinctly useful special purpose blades.

Carbide-tipped saw blades are long-lasting and extremely tough, although more expensive than other blades. Usually, however, they more than pay for themselves by lasting better than several ordinary blades. Each tooth is faced with carbide which is set to extend a tiny fraction of an inch above the non-cutting steel part of the blade. These blades will cut through almost anything except masonry, stone, concrete, steel, or other hard metals. They are splendid for cutting plastics, Formica, laminates, plywood, wallboard, asphalt roofing or siding, Transite, asbestos, aluminum, and insulating boards. In addition, they will make any kind of cut on wood-crosscut, rip, bevel, or miter.

One function of the bench saw, which it performs very well indeed, is the groove cut called a "dado." (A Groove Cut, when the term is used properly, describes a furrow cut with the grain of the wood; a Dado Cut on the other hand is a furrow cut across the grain of the wood.) A special cutter, called a "dado head," a "dado assembly," or sometimes just a "dado," is mounted on the saw shaft to replace the usual blade. It can be adjusted to the width of furrow desired, and either a groove cut or a dado cut can be made with it. There are two types of dado heads. One is a single blade of heavy steel with an adjustable hub which can be set to tilt the blade and make it waggle as it spins. According to the tilt of the blade, the dado will be wider or narrower in the final cut.