Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

Re: Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

Mark Nowicki

This one.

http://www.leevalley.com/en/wood/page.aspx?p=30062&cat=1,41080,41165,30062

I have also used Simple Green with good results, but the LeeValley stuff is the best, especially on pine pitch.

Re: Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

Bart Goldberg

Thanks Much!

Re: Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

Been using Easy-off oven cleaner and a toothbrush for years. Busts the junk off and then gets rinsed clean in about 5 minutes. Internet naysayers on damage to the carbide are, in my view, BS. Blades and bits come clean. . . done.

Simple Green and HOT water.

ammonia

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Pitch is acidic. Anything basic will dissolve it. I use ammonia or any cleaner with ammonia in it.

It has been reported that ammonia will attack carbide teeth. I have been unable to observe this claim and it makes no chemical sense. I have soaked a carbide router bit in ammonia for days with no observable effect on the luster of the surface that could indicate dissolution.

Copper has been used as a layer between the carbide teeth and the steel saw plate. Given enough time ammonia plus oxygen will dissolve copper. I can't imagine this reaction taking place on the thin copper edge exposed at the tooth weld in the time it takes to clean a blade. But to be on the safe side don't soak in ammonia water and forget the blade for a week.

works with good reason

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Oven cleaner is a strong base and it would be expected to dissolve pitch quickly.

"Internet naysayers on damage to the carbide are, in my view, BS. " Agree. If someone provides experimental proof then I will believe it. Easy to test. Expose a shiny carbide router bit for the time it takes to clean. If it stays shiny then it didn't suffer any dissolution.

2nd ammonia

David Yoho

Been using it over 25 years. It's the least expensive product you can buy and it works fairly quick.

It works and it's cheap

Steve Elliott

Aside from the smell I like ammonia for blade cleaning. I works as well as anything else I've used and costs way less.

2nd the Simple Green

GolfSteve in Calgary

It works great on tablesaw blades.

Carbide damage

Jesse Cloud

I remember the big Simple Green scare from a few years ago. The company issued the advice that one should not soak carbide bits in SG for an extended period of time, such as overnight.

I have used SG for years, never needed more than a 10 minute soak and my blades are still going strong.

BTW, my sharpener says many of the blades brought to him just need cleaning, not sharpening.

Re: Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

Keith Newton

One quick method I use is to run a cup wire wheel in a drill. I drop a screwdriver through a bench dog hole to keep it from getting away, and always have the rotation coming from about 45º off the back of the tooth. Its quick and easy and requires no cleanup.

Re: Favorite Blade and Bit cleaner

John McGaw

I've used a "blade cleaner" aerosol. At least it was labeled as such. The smell gave it away though and it was definitely the same stuff sold in the super market as oven cleaner; it worked well.

"Blade Cleaner"

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

let me guess: "At least 50% higher price than from the grocery store" right?

Re: "Blade Cleaner"

John McGaw

Can't remember but I'm sure you're right. Isn't it always that way?

But

Mark Mandell - Gone Round In New Jersey

"if you order in the next 47 seconds we'll double your order and give free shipping for the same low price of $29.95!"

More and More OT All the TIme Re: But

John McGaw

Don't see that often. Mostly I see "we'll double your order, just pay separate handling and shipping" which usually turns out to be something like $7.99 or twice what the product was worth, whichever is more. I do my best to avoid such ads and products although I run into trouble when my very elderly mother sees something as she endlessly surfs through the cable channels and fixes on something she thinks I need to buy.

Formula 409 & a toothbrush

It's all relative

Ellis Walentine

I'd stay out of this one except that I have had the opportunity to have a personal tour of Freud's carbide laboratory and manufacturing facility near Udine, Italy. Here they sinter raw carbide powder into tips for sawblades and other cutting tools, and they have a sophisticated laboratory with electron microscopes and every testing device a science nerd could want.

Anyhow, the short story is that we were talking about blade cleaning and their head engineer brought out a perfectly shined chunk of carbide and placed a drop of sodium hydroxide on it. When he rinsed it off, there was a dull round spot where the NaOH had been. That image has stuck with me.

I don't contest that bases dissolve pitch, but at some concentration they result in the degrade of the matrix that holds the microscopic (~300µ?) particles together and results in some small degree of degrade of the edge. Nothing you'd notice from one cleaning to the next, especially with diluted preparations like Simple Green. In fact, normal wear and tear probably degrades the edge as much as a cleaning in oven cleaner, but if you're absolutely particular about it, you might want to use a brass brush and some warm water. I honestly don't remember what the Freud guys recommended.

Ellis

some critical information missing

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

What I have learned in life is to beware of engineers posing as chemists, even chemical engineers.

What was the concentration of the sodium hydroxide? Sodium hydroxide is commonly sold from lab and industrial supply sources as a 50% solution. Household ammonia is typically 3% ammonia in water. The difference in hydroxide concentration between these solutions is about 1000 fold.

If ammonia attacked the carbide binder the solution would become intensely colored.

So, whatever concentration of NaOH was put on a shiny piece of carbide dulled it after some undisclosed amount of time. Roughening to the depth of the wavelength of light will dull a mirror surface. Would this reaction continue over time, or would the reaction products passivate the surface and the reaction stop?

Is this observation relevant to our cleaning and use of a blade with carbide teeth? What does it predict?

I would not suggest soaking a blade in ammonium or sodium hydroxide for a long period of time. I would be more concerned about attacking the tooth weld than premature dulling or whatever was claimed.

Nothing.

Virgil Johnson

Never cleaning a blade has worked well for me.

data from experiment

Bill Tindall, E.Tn.

Two 1/2" carbide router bits masked part way up the shaft with electrical tape. One exposed to household ammonia, the other Easy-Off oven cleaner, each for 45 min. End of bit expose, demarcation of tape indicated by magic marker mark.

Oven cleaner top bit.

I could not detect any difference in luster of exposed vs masked with naked eye or 10X magnification.

Cobalt dissolved in ammonia is intensely colored. The fact that I saw no coloration of the ammonia solution shows that less than 1 microgram of cobalt dissolved, if any.

Re: Me, too - Nothing.

david weaver

Me, too. Nothing.

Once in a while, I've done something to ruin a sawblade (cutting corian with a track saw, etc). Those are lost causes.

I used to use blades a lot more and did have pitch problems. If they got bad enough to cause serious problems, I scraped the pitch off. That was uncommon. It seemed more common to get a spot of stuff on the saw blade that went into steady state and I left it alone.

And avoided blades that had so little clearance that a tiny bit of filth was a problem. I'd clean every joint with a hand plane, so never got into the gimmick "glue line" blades.