Teeth on edger blades covered with gunk – got a fix?

[Bibbyman]

We feed our edger a steady diet of 8/4 hardwoods – mostly walnut.  The little booger does pretty good.  We'll go six months or a year and not have a problem that can't be easily fixed.

But there has been a couple of times when it just didn't want to cut.  It'd bog down and sometimes stall out completely.  I'd twinked every little thing and while it may show some improvement,  it'd go right back to not doing so well again.  As a last resort I'd change out the blades even though the ones on it felt sharp.  That tended to cure the problem.

We've had to struggle with it again the last couple of days.  One problem – the power company had some problems with the lines.  We'd get temporary outages and periods when we'd experience low voltage.  We talked to them and they have acknowledged that they have a problem and are looking into it. 

But today the power appeared fine and the edger was still sick.  Mary had resorted to edging just one side at a time.  What a drag having to carry a 10' long 8/4 flitch back to the front of the edger to edge it a second time.

Just before lunch she said, "YOU'RE going to have to do something with this edger or YOU'RE going to do the edging."  She didn't leave me any room to argue my way out of it.  Some times you just got to do things to make them happy or there is no living with them.

So I look again at the blades.  Figured I'd have to change them out again.  But I noticed that there was a lot of buildup of gunk around and over each tooth and on the face of the blades.  I took some WD40 and an old chisel and cleaned as much of the gunk off as I could.  Then I washed them down with WD40 again and took some steel wool to them.

I pushed a couple of flitches through the machine – edging both side.  FIXED!  No problem.   Mary's happy again.  I'm happy.  It's dinner time.

We had dinner and came back out and I sawed and Mary edged.  Everything went well for a couple of hours but by the time we were ready to quit, it jammed up again.  I could tell it was stating to bog down again.  I checked the teeth and sure enough,  they were gunked up again.

The one big change that may be at the root of this problems is ASH.  We've been sawing everything but ash up until the last few days.  The ash logs are nice ones. Cut a couple of months ago.  They saw wonderfully even though I've learned I've got to keep the water and soap running on the blade or it'll gunk up.



This picture is a little out of focus but this is how much gunk had built up on the teeth after about 20 flitches were pushed through it. This is not nearly as heavy a buildup as was there before I cleaned them - but in a few more hours of use, it will be.

Has anyone got an easy way to keep this gunk off the blades?

Has anyone got an easy way to get it off after it's on the blades?

Maybe I need to call in a dental hygienist to get those teeth clean!

[Kevin_H.]

Bibby when the blades on the gang get gummed up like that we use oven cleaner, We spray it on before we go to lunch or a short break, by the time we come back the blade will pretty much wipe clean, some times we dont even wipe it down, after the OC has loosened up the gunk just run a couple of flitches throught.

We found some real cheap oven cleaner at the dollar store, it was in a pump sprayer which cut down on the fumes, although in the open the fumes are not a real big problem.

[RichlandSawyer]

Hi Bibbyman.

Thought i'd throw i my two cents worth. I have the same problem with my table saw in the shop. i rip down a lot of kiln dried pine and the pitch in it is very tacky. I spray my blade with silicon spray and then follow that up with a cutting tool lubricant called Protool that i get from the local tool store. Of course i'm not running thousands of feet of lumber but it seems to work pretty well. When it does start to get some buildup its a lot easier to clean. My great grandfather ran a foley circle mill for years on his farm and when he would pull a blade for sharpening he would soak it in diesel until he was ready to use it again, he claimed the carbon in the fuel would attach to the blade and help stop pitch buildup. Dont know if its true but i have to say something was sticking to those blades because they always looked like a well seasoned frying pan.

[Ron Wenrich]

Sometimes I cut about 20-30 Mbf of ash at a time.  I get that buildup on both the edger saws and the head saw.  I don't have any problem with feeding, but then I have plenty of hp.  You should be running about 20 hp.

But, the quickest cure there is to get rid of that acid buildup is to saw a tulip poplar log.  Knocks all that crap off with one log. 

I doubt if you have much tulip poplar out there, so you might want to try some other specie. 

White oak will also cause that buildup, but not as quick or heavy as ash. 

[Bibbyman]

Thanks guys! 

I bet if I could go back to when this problem has happened before I'd find out we were sawing ash or some other wood that causes this.

We'll only saw ash in any large amount about once or twice a year.  At other times we may have just a log or two that will come in from a customer to saw.

No tulip poplar but I'm wondering if a fresh sycamore would clean it up about the same?

But,  even our biggest runs of ash at a time is probably under 5mbf.  We've got 15 more logs to saw.  I think I'll try Kevin's oven cleaner idea and see if they helps us get though these.

[ARKANSAWYER]

  Oven cleaner from Freds works fine and is about $1 a can.   I spray them down the rise them off and put ATF on them.
 When I ran a circle blade mill when ash came along we made sure the teeth were sharp and swaged them as wide as we could.  Once I had the blades retipped on the edger and even red oak would bind.  Had them redone with wider tips and it works fine now.
 Run some dry cedar through, that always cleans my blade.

[GF]

I use Whestly's Bleach White, is used to clean the tires on vehicles.  You cna find it at Wal-Mart in the automotive section.  I use it to clean all my bandsaw blades for the mill, tablesaw blades etc.  Spray it on and it will disolve the pitch on the blade.

[spokeshave]

I'd advise against oven cleaner. The lye in oven cleaner attacks the brazing material holding the carbide teeth to the blade. This can eventually cause the brazed joint to fail and the blade to launch a tooth. At best, this is a costly inconvenience, at worst, it can be very dangerous. If you check with the blade manufacturer, they will probably confirm this.

Simple Green does a great job of cleaning pitch and gunk off of blades, and it will not degrade the brazing.

Tim

[Larry]

I've used the oven cleaner trick for years on table saw blades...I found out recently that Freud recommends not to use oven cleaner on anything with carbide tips because it will weaken the carbide. ???

Didn't know the exact reason until spokeshave just now told me.  I'll have to get some of that Simple Green.

[KILROY]

Bibbyman,

Cheap carburetor cleaner helps to take some pitch off. Then, like ARKY said, saw some dry cedar. Dry cedar will shine your blades up.

[Bro. Noble]

We've had that problem some with our resaw.  Seems like ash is about the worst,  followed closely by persimmon,  and some hickories.  You are right in thinking that Sycamore will clean it off.  When we're cutting some of those problem woods,  I like to alternate sycamore bolts with them if I have any handy.  Red oak helps clean up the blade too,  but not like sycamore.

[broker farmer]

I've been using Simple Green for the "soap" portion of my water/soap lube mix.  I had noticed that it sure made the blade shine.  The only reason I used it was because it was handy the day I made up the lube mix.  Now I find out it's good to use!  Good news!

[fstedy]

If you want to keep the buildup from sticking to the blades try spraying them with a dry film lubricant. MSC carries many types check their website under lubricants dry film.

www.mscdirect.com