What is the right amount of water for cutting.

[rasorbackQ]

Kind of new to sawing and water is cheap. What is the proper amount of water flow for blade lube?  Does it depend on species. I run my flow at a good trickle. Why do we need lube? Do we need lube for winter frozen wood sawing?

[ladylake]

Enough to keep the blade clean, you'll find some wood takes a lot.   Steve

[rmack]

A fellow brought over some dry oak one day, a species I never thought I would get to saw, I forgot to open the water valve and noticed the blade tension gauge start to dive almost immediately on entering the piece. I reached up and turned on the water, the tension guide stopped diving and started to move upward again, still cutting. keeping the blade cool is certainly an issue. You should be able to at least partly figure out how much water you need by watching the blade tension gauge.

Of course, there are probably other reasons/indicators as well. 

[woodmills1]

answer is none
use diesel and bar oil, spray when needed

[rasorbackQ]

A fellow brought over some dry oak one day, a species I never thought I would get to saw, I forgot to open the water valve and noticed the blade tension gauge start to dive almost immediately on entering the piece. I reached up and turned on the water, the tension guide stopped diving and started to move upward again, still cutting. keeping the blade cool is certainly an issue. You should be able to at least partly figure out how much water you need by watching the blade tension gauge.

Of course, there are probably other reasons/indicators as well. 

I have no tension gauge on my saw.

[isawlogs]

 You need to have enough flow to keep the blade from having sap build up, we can go on all night long as to wich product to use and never get anywhere near an answer that will be acepted by all. I use water and windsheild washer mix, it works for me, I use this only when sap starts to build up on the blade, that also works for me, some will need a lot more because there wood has more sap, as like the southern pines... i don't saw any so i would not know what to use in that case.
  I have also used pinesol with water to lube the blade, it works quite well, some use water and dish soap. I tried that and personnaly don't like all the sods(bubles)

Hope you hae fun sawing and let us know what you try and how it works for you !   

[mikeb1079]

I have no tension gauge on my saw.

that's ok, neither do i.  you'll find that some species will saw quite easily without much (if any) water or diesel or whatever.  other species?  good lord you need to have a good flow of water and pine sol or diesel or cascade!  otherwise you'll get pitch buildup on the band and especially on the teeth. this will give you fits.  did i hear someone say white ash?   :D

so the answer to your question depends on what you're sawing, but as a general rule i would say a nice trickle works.   

[Magicman]

I would use whatever your sawmill manufacturer recommends.

Mine recommends soapy water so I use two oz. of liquid Cascade per gallon of water.  It mixes well and does not foam when you are filling the jug.  I normally use ~5 gallons in a day's sawing.

[drobertson]

As mentioned, whatever it takes to keep the band clean, if alignment is good 5 gallons should last for well over 2000bdft, of course this does depend on the logs, mill alignment is probably the most critical element in my opinion. Logs with a high sap content will require more,   david

[YellowHammer]

Use enough lube so that the dull blade comes off the saw looking as bright and shiney as it did when it was first installed.  If it comes off black then its burned, if it comes off with pitch spots or streaks, it was about to get burned.  Burning comes from pitch buildup and destroys good blade performance.

Whatever lube mixture you use, make sure it has enough solvent, whether water, soap, oil, whatever, to remove the pitch buildup and prevent it from starting on the blade.  Sometimes plain water will remove the pitch, sometimes it won't.  An old sawyer once told me that when you are washing your greasy hands under the faucet, just turning up the water won't cut it, sometimes it just takes more soap.  Same thing with blade lube.

YH

[rasorbackQ]

Lots of great points ref sap.  So the trees I have are red oak, maple, poplar, hemlock and spruce. Are these sappy wood ? or how do they compare to others?

[Magicman]

Conifers generally have the sap that will cause problems, but I use lube whenever I am sawing.  Virtually no exceptions.

[Happycamper]

As per MM suggestion I have used Cascade since I started. If there is too much flow I get a buildup of sawdust on the belts which increases the tension on the blade. Have found some logs have more moisture than others and adjust water flow accordingly. On some of the fir logs water will not remove the pitch and l keep a small spray bottle of diesel handy when that happens.
                                        Jim

[Alyeska Pete]

The correct amount of water is exactly zero. I use #2 diesel with Cook's sight glass drip system.  I average 2 gallons for 300 hours of band time. This is in green white pine. No pitch buildup, no rust, no freezing, no mess and no heat buildup. I would never go back to water or any mixture thereof. This is with 26" all steel, balanced band wheels with a 51 hp diesel pulling an 1 5/8" X 0.050" X 1" pitch X 10° hook. Never tried it with belted wheels.

[ancjr]

Don't have a bandsaw mill, but was always confounded at the use of water.  I do have handsaws, pruning saws, hedge trimmers, chainsaws, etc. and never thought of using water on them.  Diesel dispensed from a wd40 spray bottle on all the above.  Not correcting anybody, just admitting that I don't understand the use of water.

[ladylake]

Water is cheap, keeps the blade clean most of the time and most of all doesn't smell.  I run diesel in the winter and would run it all year except for the smell.   Steve

[m wood]

razorbackq, of all the species you are getting into, I have only sawed norway spruce.  Logs have been down a year but they still ooze big sap drips in the warmer weather.  I run a 1 1/2" band, 7/8"  with a 10 degree, in front of a 13hp honda on an older Norwood Mark 4.  I have ran it with water and only water and I have done just fine getting the blade to come out of the log shiney each time.  No, water by itself will not clean the pitch off my hands when I get home, but I figure I am not creating the same friction with the same abrasive qualities of a band running through a log either.  It is a softer wood than most but sure is pitchy...I figure I am keeping things cool as much as anything.

NOW, to answer your question.  I have about 3 or 4 drips per second hitting the blade...it almost wants to trickle but I can still count the drips.  My wife gets it flowing pretty good when she runs the mill, probably 2 or 3 times what I let flow (NOT nearly full open) and both seem to work fine for us.  We've been meanin to try cascade or pinesol but we keep forgetting to bring with us.

Disclaimer:  I have been running this mill only since March and it is the first bandmill we have owned.  I estimate a meager 3 or 4 mbft.  I got 12 used rusty blades with the mill and started using them with that old edge just to see what I had to start with.  Seemed to work fine enough for personal lumber needs and now I have begun to touch up the faces only with modified chainsaw grinder. 

Once through a few logs, running just water, they shined right up.  Just like the good folks here told me they would.
you'll get the flow right for you!
Mark   

[rasorbackQ]

Like I said before water is cheap . Runs off the roof into the poultry water bucket. Just have to fix the water tank now  Seems to be a crack at about a gallon mark  In the summer months I keep a wide funnel on the filler  to collect the rain. Most times I use the mill the water is topped up.

[5quarter]

I'm with Woodmills1. I don't mind spending five or ten bucks a year to ensure my blade is always clean, no matter what I'm cutting. mostly I don't need any lube. when I do, it's usually a couple squirts as needed as woodmills1 suggests. on rare occasions I'll run into a S/P/F or a bur oak thats just full of resin. For those I have a stick with a green pad wrapped around the end. I dip it in my can of diesel and lay it on the blade body while the saw is idling between cuts. blade clean. If you're going to use water, use the minimum amount needed to keep the blade clean. a water drip system on full can start to get messy after a few hours of sawing. Bottom line is keep the blade clean. water, diesel or any other mixture doesn't really matter as long as it keeps the steel shiny. ;)

ps...the important thing is to keep the blade clean, in case I forgot to mention it before. ;D

[bandmiller2]

Just enough water for your scotch.Wick applied diesel/oil is the benchmark to which all are compared.Its all in the amount and how its applied.Water works but theirs something inherently wrong about putting water on fine  steel. Frank C.

[Chuck White]

I think that as long as there is some moisture on the blade (be it diesel or water) the pitch or resin won't build up.

I have the shut off valve on the cap of my water/lube bottle, and about 2-3 inches down the line I have a small adjustment valve and I keep it adjusted (most of the time) to a couple of drips per second!

The second valve eliminates readjustment everytime you have to shut the water off.

I use water and about ¼ cup of dish soap!

[rmack]

guess my inexperience shows when I miss the reason for the lube entirely. 

I wonder if the reason for water on belted band wheels is because of diesel's propensity to attack synthetic rubber?

btw, does diesel chew up the plastic lube reservoirs?

[barbender]

  You don't want to run diesel in a water lube flowing type system, you'd have a heck of a stinky mess. We're not comparing apples to apples, a diesel lube system like Cook's uses a felt pad that rides on the blade (WM owners, it's the same principle your track wiper uses), I'm looking forward to putting a diesel lube system on my WM, I might just add some felt pads on my mast rails that keep will keep a sheen of atf on those as well. I hate slobbering atf all over and watching most of it run off. I envision squirting the pads with atf once a day, and a quart of diesel will last at least 40 hours of sawing for blade lube. I won't miss wet sawdust stuck to everything : WM's lubemizer is a definite improvement as far as water lube systems. My 97 LT40 super had a solenoid that only turned on the water when the head drive was engaged in forward, that really cut down the water use. Unfortunately a seal went out

[barbender]

(Sorry my android doesn't let me make long posts, maybe I should take a hint? :D)... the seal went bad in my solenoid, I can't find parts and I've been to busy to mess with it lately. My point in my long winded post is that water works, diesel wipe system is superior IMO.

[mmartone]

I'd like to try diesel but am worried that the fuel will ruin/swell the belts in the wheels..