Cutting long leaf pine full of rosin/lighter

[flatrock58]

My brother in law always brings me dead or dying long leaf pines from his place to mill.  Yesterday we tried to cut one and could not get the mill to cut straight after the blade gummed up with rosin.  The entire log was solid rosin/lighter.   It would wonder and dip and dive.  I had water going on the lubemiser and even tried diesel.  I have attached a picture of how the blade would look after one pass.  I tried 2 7 degree blades and 1 turbo 7 blade with the same results.  After giving up on the pine I cut an oak log with the same blade with no problem.  My question is would another blade profile have done any better.?





 

 

[Mfrost459]

The grain looks super nice but the blade looks awful. It will be interesting to see what some of the solutions are.

[Southside]

Straight diesel has always been the end all solution for me, don't like using it but it works, so short of liquefied plutonium I have no idea what to suggest.  Maybe @caveman or @Magicman  can chime in.  

[btulloh]

I haven't found a solution for that either.  I might be alone on this, but my solution is to use it for fire starter.  For me, something like that is unusable for any purpose other than perhaps siding.  Fortunately it's pretty rare here in Virginia Pine and loblolly.  I've tried to use some in the past, but even setting the pitch doesn't eliminate problems down the road.  Every tool that touches it will get gummed up (byrd head being the worst nightmare) and it never wants to stop weeping sap.  Just my 2¢.  It'll be interesting to see what others say.

[pineywoods]

Blade don't matter. The only help is diesel/kerosene applied liberally to BOTH sides of the blade before each cut..

[dchiapin]

I cut a lot of that kind of pine. Sticky nasty mess.
I use cheap automatic dishwasher soap, three big clubs per 5 gallon in the lube tank let it run at maximum flow
Just before each pass I enter the cut just a few inches and with the mill running squirt 3-4 small blast on the gummy blade with diesel fuel. Let it run and inch forward a few more inches and usually the blade comes pretty clean. Sometimes I see the blade gum up again and just stop the blade and repeat the spray with the diesel.
Nothing is perfect for those logs, but its about the best thing I have come up with yet.
Sure will be interesting to see how others solve the problem.

[kelLOGg]

Blade don't matter. The only help is diesel/kerosene applied liberally to BOTH sides of the blade before each cut..

That's why I designed a double sided wick oiler for before and after the cut. I experienced what flatrock describes about a decade and decided 2 diesel wicks before and after the cut should do the trick. Unfortunately I have never had "lighter" pine to saw since so I have never put it to the test but I still use it even though it overkill for everything else.

[customsawyer]

I've cut lots of Longleaf pine. Strait diesel will get it.  If you are cutting and you see it start to gum up the blade just hit the full blast on the lubemizer for a second. Be prepared to see your belt on the drive wheel go to heck.

[caveman]

I was going to suggest that CustomSawyer and Ellmoe have sawn a lot more of it than we have but I have tried spindle lube, dish soap, pine-sol, laundry soap, voodoo chickens and probably some others but the diesel has been what we have had the most success with.

I do not remember if it was with liveoak or heart pine but Ellmoe or Nomad told me that prying up on the board as it is being cut will help reduce the sap build up on the blade (my rememberer sometimes lets me down).  Reduce friction, reduce heat, reduce pitch buildup.

Btulloh is right about setting the pitch.  Our hotbox's floor is covered with pitch we have cooked out of some while setting the pitch.  The local lumber store that sells some of our wood asked JohnM and me to come pick up the rest of our pine from their store.  They sold it for good money but they did not appreciate the clean up they had to do on their planer.  We planed some last Friday for a guy who is restoring an old Florida house.  I need to clean the planers before we use them again.

Flatrock, your cant looks like it came from one of our logs.  We have had the best success using 1.5" regular 7° and have some 1.5" 4° now that cut a little flatter when encountering knots in wood like that but they are still not perfect and get a wave occasionally.  Get your grain of salt because there are folks on here who saw more in a week or so than we do in a year.

When we were having problems, I was sending PM's, calling the blade distributors and double checking the mill alignment.  It can cause me to question my competency.

[slider]

I saw a good bit of pine like that and like Caveman i have tried it all . Diesel fuel works best for me. I set my lubemizer to squirt about every 6 seconds on both sides and like Customsawyer if i get build up i flip it on full blast for a moment. 

[SawyerTed]

I've been known to use a long handled short bristle brush on the blade between cuts as I apply diesel from a small sprayer. The safety officer might not approve.  

[flatrock58]

I used diesel which usually works, but this log was much worse than others I have tried in the past.  I does make you doubt your mills alignment though.  I even cleaned off the blade with a wire brush and it would not make one pass without starting to dip and dive.  I finally gave up on the last log and it is still sitting on the mill.  Guess it will be cut up into lighter for next winter!

[btulloh]

Nothing wrong with doing that. It sure makes starting a fire easy. It should last you much longer than just next winter. I use 4 little sticks of it, 1/2 a sheet of newspaper and 4 pieces of edging and the fire roars to life. Wouldn't build a fire without it. Unless I had to. 

[Woodpecker52]

Make way more money selling as fire starter sticks, put in a burlap bag and market online.  I use diesel in addition to water/dawn mix.  Just mounted a small plastic lawnmower gas tank, line, cutoff valve to a copper tube end piece that I strapped next to the water end piece.  I just use it to quickly clean a gummed blade, a lot easier than trying to use a spray bottle.  Cutoff valve is right next to water valve. Tank I mounted just in front of water tank.

[moodnacreek]

How does it cut on a circle sawmill? At least you have a board spreader.  The only wood I have gummed up on was ash, now a thing of the past.

[Tom King]

How wide is the Heart, how much do you have, and what price?

That's unobtainium here, and the 18th, and early 19th Century houses I work on are built from it.

I'd love to get my hands on some.

[SpaceBus]

Try placing some cedar shims along the cut as you go. I've heard of this problem for guys using chainsaw mills for super wide slabs, and they just used plastic felling wedges stuffed into the cut as they went. 

[Wintergreen Mountain]

   I use an Oxygenated dish soap in my pine sawing lube. usually works ok. When the soap and water alone don't keep the blade clear I dissolve some Borax and add it to the lube solution, cleans it right up.


   Leon

[ellmoe]

What Caveman and Custom Sawyer said. ;) I'll also alternate with a different species , like cypress , to "clean" the blades between heavy heart pine logs.

[Sixacresand]

dchiapin,  I know it is discouraging to see waves in pretty fat pine.
Hang in there,  You will figure it out. 

I mounted one of these to the control box  filled with diesel .  I ran a plastic tube to get diesel to the blade.   If I hear the engine bog in pine or notice resin buildup, I give it a few shots. Sometimes it works. Flooding the blade with regular soap water lube also helps.  



 

[caveman]

How wide is the Heart, how much do you have, and what price?



 

 

 

 

 Tom, John took a few pictures of some longleaf that we still need to saw.  It is pretty easy to see the heartwood in the cants and logs.  We sawed 15 logs into cants, one inch over sized, a couple of weeks ago.  We have many more to work through but we need more racks to stack more wood.  We both have day jobs so we saw when we can.  The piths are not centered in all of the cants due to log sweep.

We ran into a liveoak log this morning that ate our lunch.  I may elaborate in whatcha sawing.