>:( I just spent most of my evening cleaning sawmill blades before sharpening them....
When out cutting custom work I cut logs of many spiecies and when blades get dull I just replace them and move on.....but when I get home I spend lots of time scraping off the hard sap with a paint scraper before putting them on the sharpening system.
What do YOU do?
:-\ Robert
I run the blade lube full bore (water) until the blade is clean. Then I take it off. :)
If the dull one IS clean, wipe it down with an oily rag, before folding.
Run it full speed with the water off then spray/wipe it with your favorite brew (WD40/diesel/kerosene/etc.) before removing it.
I run a diesel oil drip and do the same- clean it before it comes off. Sometimes I may need to open the drip to saturate the blade and then hold a stick to the blade if there is a heavy, gummy buildup.
Your band should be clean while your sawing...if you have a build up of sap your probably not running nuff lube when sawing.
But if you get sap build up, do as Tom suggested.
And if you have a build up on bands waiting to be re-sharpened just spray them down with oven cleaner and wipe off the sap in bout 5 minutes.
And don't think you can use oven cleaner on carbide table saw blades...it's lye and weakens carbide.
QuoteAnd don't think you can use oven cleaner on carbide table saw blades...it's lye and weakens carbide.
Never knew that, Larry. Thanks
Thanks Larry
Now to have a carbide band saw woodmill......
Robert
Thanks for the suggestions all......but :-\
Won't the blade run off the pulleys with a lube like 10w or kerosene added and what can be added to the water to help with sap build-up?
Robert
I use carb cleaner before I take the blade off the mill, just a lite spray
and it scraps off easily.
arj
use 50 50 diesel/bar oil all the time from squirt bottle. I run it on every blade till clean before removing. Got tired of scraping.
You can add a bit of dish soap to help with the sap or you can do like me and keep the blades really sharp and not run lube at all (well hardly). ;D
Disclaimer: There are some species that even I have to run lube to keep the blade from gumming up.
Robert, when I'm cutting something that's really sappy like spruce, pine, or tamarack I mix a few ounces of Dawn dish soap in with my water. Last year I cut some red pine for someone that had them stacked for over a year. I figured they'd be easy to cut....y'know, maybe less sappy since they sat for a while ::) I couldn't make more than one cut without the blade getting all gummed up and then taking a dive in the cant. Put some dish soap in the water and it cleared right up ;)
Minnesota_boy beat me to it :D
For the most part, all I run is water in varying amounts. Sometimes 1/3 cup to the gallon of dish soap like palmolive.
PineSol mixed with the lube water helps keep the blades clean when you are sawing pine. With other woods like sweet gum, I just run an extra good stream of water while cutting to keep the blades clean.
Side note:
If you mix dish washing detergent and water for lube, it can cause the water jug to fill with foam and you will be hours trying to fill it up with a hose the next time you fill the tank. Dont ask me how I know this :D :D
old pine may be the worst for sap build up.
Lots of old pine in the log pile ::)
Hey...Minessota-boy
May be we should talk about sharpening to solve the other problems?
Robert
Quote from: Robert Long on January 18, 2007, 09:10:29 PM
Won't the blade run off the pulleys with a lube like 10w or kerosene added
I don't know if it's the same with a WM, but if too much lube throws the blade on mine, it's a sign the wheel belts are way past worn out. A good crown on the wheel keeps the blade on no matter how much lube is applied.
Hello Robert,
I saw a lot of the gummy pine here in Virginia. We use a lot of pine-sol in our water and see a lot of bubbles. We never have sap on the blades when we change them. Something else we have had problems with is sap on the rails and under the guards. I had a brain storm a few weeks ago and cleaned the rails and guards real good. Then sprayed the heavy with PAM and have gone 3 blade changes with no sap on rails. I just wipe the rails with paper towel and spray on more. The buildup under the guards just wipes with a paper towel also. Sam's has the best price on both items.
Robert in Virginia
Quote from: Robert Long on January 18, 2007, 09:32:33 PM
May be we should talk about sharpening to solve the other problems?
I cheat. I send my blades to Woodmizer Resharp.
I only saw on site which means that lots of times a quite a ways from home. When I have to spend lots of road time getting to the job and back, I try to put as much sawing time in a day as I can so I come home really tired. (maybe it's because I'm getting old) I really don't feel much like sharpening blades then, nor do I feel like sharpening on the weekend (sometimes I'm sawing then too) and I've never been able to get my blades quite as sharp as the Resharp guys. Really sharp blades make really nice lumber. It impresses the customer who then brag to their neighbors who then hire me to do their sawing. I haven't advertised in 9 years and usually have more sawing to do than I have time to do.
I use the Wood-Mizer blade lube and get almost no sap buildup. I also keep the blade lube applied at a faster rate if I start to see any buildup begin.
Also, I had a "blade expert" from a well known sawmill manufacturing company ;D :-X ;D tell me if I didn't want to spend the money on the WM lube, I could just mix pinesol and a little vegitable oil in the water. I tried this and wasn't happy with the results. I may have used to much vegitable oil because the overspray gummed up the mill and made things sticky.
I'm back to buying the WM lube. :)
I mostly have only have cut pine, and hickory. I have been using
water (5gal.) and pinesol lemon fresh (2cups) no sap build up at all
smells good too!!
Ivey
eh eh Ivey (I'm Canadian)
I know what you mean, I've used some real nice smelling dish soap once and the people around the mill were talking!
Robert
Dr-Buck
Perhaps you were using vegetable oil with transfats.......not good for the arteries of the mill!
:D :D
Robert
No body has talked about buildup on both sides of the blade. Sawing heart pine I once got so much buildup on the bottom of the blade that the blade rose right out of the cant. My wiper kept the top clean so I modified it to wipe top and bottom, fore and aft. I was using diesel. Anybody else had such a problem?
Minesota-boy :-\
I wish we here in Canada had a resharp program, I know how you feel, out all day in the weather and away from home and tired and looking to get home A.S.A.P. and then having to start all over again by sharpening blades.
By the way I take my time sharpening...Once to clean up the edge and make the teeth all uniform before setting them then sharpen the blade a second time to assure it's the way I like it.
Infact I have a magnafying lens with a light mounted on the sharpener to check out the top edge of the teeth. ::)
Robert
I was told to get Kerosene and wipe the oil off the blades before you install the blade. Supposed to keep blade tracked better? Is this true?
I usually flush mine with a good stream of water before I take them off the mill, if that doesn't get it all, I scrape the rest off with a putty knife just before I set them!!
After I set and sharpen my blades, I wipe them down with a rag and ATF!
I don't wipe them off before they go back on the mill, doesn't seem to have any ill affects!
Quote from: getoverit on January 18, 2007, 09:25:23 PM
PineSol mixed with the lube water helps keep the blades clean when you are sawing pine. With other woods like sweet gum, I just run an extra good stream of water while cutting to keep the blades clean.
Side note:
If you mix dish washing detergent and water for lube, it can cause the water jug to fill with foam and you will be hours trying to fill it up with a hose the next time you fill the tank. Dont ask me how I know this :D :D
Don't run the jug dry, take the nozzle off the hose and put it under the water level in the jug before turning on the water. You get much less foam that way.
I run enough dishwashing liquid to make the water very blue. Haven't had a build up of sap to cause any issues. If I start seeing some sap accumulate, I turn the water up a bit until it is gone.
I don't clean them unless I have 1/4" of pitch on the back side. :D :D :D
And I cut dry all the time. :D :D I don't like wet wood. ;D
Invert the blade and knock off the sap with the wire brush on your grinder. Wipe with ATF or WD40.
Be sure to turn them back right side out or they will cut real funny. ???
I use a diesel/bar oil drip with felt wiper on the inside of the blade and a diesel spray on the outside. The spray is from an automotive windshield washer system. I no longer have any buildup on my blades, in fact, they are always shiny clean with a layer of diesel/bar oil protecting them.
Spray with diesel before taking off then off to resharp they go.
Quote from: Peter Drouin on June 07, 2018, 06:12:39 AM
I don't clean them unless I have 1/4" of pitch on the back side. :D :D :D
:o :o :o ...... :D :D :D
Some make to much on the blade cleaning and setting, The blades are most forgiving.
I use a floor standing drill press with a cup brush pressed to a board/fence on the drill press table. Invert the blade and pull it through to clean it.
If I have one with residue that doesnt come off with that, I spritz it outside with purple cleaner (sodium hydroxide) and after a few minutes with that it cleans easily.
I never have anything to clean off. I use a blade lube that prevents build up.
Mr Yellowhammer, what do you use?
The Eastern white pine I saw builds up a lot of pitch
I use Cotton Picker Spindle Cleaner pretty much exclusively. It's a water soluble oil and detergent that is added to water and used to clean very expensive spindles of plant matter and dirt. It's been very effective for me, and my bands come off the mill as clean and shiney as when they were put on. The oil is odorless, and doesn't stain wood.
It can be bought on Amazon or from many Farmers Coops.
YH, are you diluting it, and how much?
Water works well to keep my blades clean in both western juniper and ponderosas pine.
I don't have an exact recipe, I wing it. If I have a nearly empty water tank, I put maybe a half dozen glugs, maybe more or less until I see the water turn heavy milky. Then I turn on the lube flow and watch with the band not moving and when the mix is right, it will wet adhere and crawl down the band. Then I make a few cuts and see if the band stays clean. If not, I'll add some more. If the band stays clean, then I'll run the tank down throughout the day, and when it's about half full, I'll just refill it up with plain water, and get back to sawing. If the band starts to pitch up, I'll pour in some more oil. Hickory I add pretty heavy, cherry and others the mix will work well even if weak. I only go through maybe 10 gallons of Spindle cleaner max a year, because when mix is working I can turn the Lubemizer way down, and almost saw dry because the oil film keeps any pitch from sticking. So the heavier the mix, the less flow needed on the band and the no more scraping wet sawdust, it generally just falls off the boards and the bands are dry, slick and clean. I mix it pretty heavy for sticky pine and milled up a few thousand boardfeet a couple weeks ago, and had almost no pitch on the bands.
For example, I sawed some hickory a few weeks ago, mixed a pretty heavy milky mix, and the band stayed clean as a whistle. I refilled the jug with plain water, and the mix was still strong, so I did a days worth of cedar, refilled with plain water again, then sawed a days red maple, and still didn't have any buildup. So some wood needs more, some need less.
It's the only stuff I use with these days. Its also keeps me from having to clean my bands before I sharpen them, and will keep them from rusting. I first learned of this many years ago from a Woodmizer Competition Shootout Sawyer who had a 5 gallon jug of the John Deere spindle cleaner stashed in the back of his service truck for use in the competitions.
I use the John Deere Spindle Cleaner and also the local Farmers COOP brand, I don't know about the stuff on amazon, but it should be the same stuff.
Here's the way I look at it. If you have sticky rosin, grease, or paint on your hands, and rinse them with a water hose, the plain water will clean your hands, and get some, but not all off, as water is a very effective but weak solvent. If you turn the water up higher, your hands still won't get clean, the only solution is to add some detergent or the proper solvent or both. Then you can turn the water down and your hands will get clean anyway. Same with blade lube, it only takes the proper solvent or detergent in the lube tank to keep the bands clean, and the solution isn't always turn the water up, its add more solvent. If you want to run a simple experiment, take a pitchy band in your hands and rub various solvents on it and see which works. A little diesel on you fingers will work well, some soaps will work well, PinSol ("Pine Solvent") work well at high enough concentrations, I've even used Deep Purple and Green Cleaner from Auto Zone. Murphys Oil Soap works when mixed with soap, such as Dawn and Cascade, lots of soaps and solvents will work and odds are there are several good candidates in your kitchen or garage. My point is that you can easily tell if what you have works, and what concentration is good, without ever running the mill. Simple and useful chemistry.
Your right YH. Everyone has to find what works for them.
If I have to I use a little water. I find the older the log the more it will pitch in pine.
After reading recommendations from others on the forum, I decided to try cotton-picker spindle cleaner. First, I had to find it, cotton is not grown in Kansas. Local coop and JD dealer had never heard of it. I gave him the JD part number and he said it would be $100 + shipping (5 gallons). Was on a short trip to central Arkansas, checked at least a dozen places, no one had it. Finally went on-line and found it (Mississippi), $45 for 5 gallons + $48 shipping.
Started out using it at 1:10 ration (cleaner to water). There were a few logs where I still got buildup so now trying 1:8 (1 cup per gallon). Probably will go to 1:6 on the next batch. I seldom mill timber logs, most of mine are residential removals, storm-damaged or diseased, so I probably run in to pitchy logs more often. When the drip won't keep up with the pitch, I squirt a little bit of Fluid Film on a wire brush and the blade cleans up quickly.
Wow, the shipping is expensive. I pay $45 for a 5 gallon bucket, but its common here in cotton country so no shipping.