Magic green goop lube + 4 degree blades=happy pine sawyer :)

[Dave Shepard]

Started using the cooking oil/dawn dish soap lube today, worked great on white pine! Sawed all afternoon, and no sap on the band. 8) 8) 8) 16 oz cooking oil, about 1/4 cup Dawn, maybe a little less, per tank. 8) 8) No more diesel. You can't run the lubemizer from the wireless, so I just leave it on setting 4 and forget about it.


Dave

(See reply #5 for 4 degree update)

[John_Haylow]

Dave, I was wondering if you have tried the pinesol with dawn dish soap recipe? I use about 1/2 cup of pinesol and a few squirts of dawn per tank of water and find it works well on pine. I'm also using lube-mizer as well.
John

[Bibbyman]

We've been using Murphy's Oil soap for the past 6-8 months.  If you get the water/soap mix on your hands it feels like it has a paraffin wax feel to it.  We are only using a couple of ounces to the five gallons of water.  Works well on all the hardwoods.

We sawed a couple of gooey, nasty, sticky pine logs (Yuck!) and turned the water on fool blast.  I can't remember if it kept the blade completely free of sap but we go through it without any sawing problems.

[Dave Shepard]

I was warned against turning up the lube too high, was told it would fill up the gullets with wet sawdust. I am sawing fresh young pine, the kind with smooth bark, about as sappy as your going to get, and no buildup.


Dave

[zopi]

Been using straight generic pine cleaner from Sam's club...cutting some gooey pine with sap running out of the log with no buildup at all..

[Dave Shepard]

I was having a lot of trouble sawing pine with the new mill. I was a little disappointed, seeing as how I could outsaw it with the old manual for both production and quality. After a couple of phone conversations with Wood-Mizer Hannibal, I've got it sawing like a champ! 8) The first step was to get rid of the pitch, which the above mixture did quite nicely. The other step was to use the 4° bands. I had been using them on hemlock, but switched back to the 10° for the pine, which is what I had always used on the manual. It turns out the 4° have a taller tooth, which gives it a chance to cut the fiber instead of mushing it. I was cutting along at a very high feed rate, and you could barely hear the engine open up when it went through the knot whorls. It also exited the cut so smoothly you  had to look to verify you were actually out of the log. 8) Sawyers are happiest when everything works and the zings, crunches and bangs are kept to a minimum. :D


Dave

[kelLOGg]

My saw lubricant container is steel - actually it is part of the sawhead structure. I have been using diesel in it instead of water-based lubricants to avoid potential rusting inside. Does anyone have experience with steel tanks rusting with water usage? I would like to switch to more benign stuff like those in this thread but not if rust is a problem.
Bob

[Brad_S.]

Yes, it does cause rusting. When I used water, I had to take the valve off a couple times a year to flush the rust flakes out. They would build up at the outlet area and clog the opening.
I much prefer diesel anyhow, a little goes a long way. When I used water, I would refill the tank 3-4 times a day. With diesel, I refill every 4-5 days.

[amberwood]

I use water soluble oil...the stuff you use in metal working machinery. A cap full in with 15L of water...or whatever the standard LT40 tank holds. The original tank has long been UV destroyed. You have the benefits of cheap lube(water) and it wont make anything rust!

DTR

[kelLOGg]

Amberwood, I remember that water-soluble oil. I have used it in a metal-cutting band saw. Pour it in water and it turns a milky white, right? and the saw never rusted like you said. Does anyone know if it will cut pine pitch?
Bob

[amberwood]

Pine is all I seem to be cutting at the moment....seems to OK. Yep turns milky white when mixed. I think I paid AUD$45 for 5 litres...so about US$45 for a USG..have to love that exchange rate!!! 96c/USD at the moment!

DTR

[Dave Shepard]

I don't know how it compares to your mix Amberwood, but the cooking oil and dish soap is cheap. It can't be more than $.50 per batch. And safe too. Not sure about the bands rusting, may have to coat with Rust Reaper if it's going to sit for a while.


Dave

[pineywoods]

I've used the water soluable cutting oil in my band sharpener for years. No rusty blades or rusty sharpener parts. Haven't tried it in the lube, but I'll give it a try.

[amberwood]

Dave...I should have clarified. That $ is for the oil...then i run it at least 750:1 mix...so that would be about $0.06 per batch.

DTR

[SamB]

I'm new to this sport, but I have learned that sawing pine ,at least with my sawmill, requires more than plain water to lube and clean the blade. I've been using pinesol 4 oz. to 5 gal. of water. Was thinking of experimenting with a borax / pinesol mixture for sawing pine. Has anyone tried this or know why one shouldn't try it? I've read some woodcarvers and log home manufactures use a borax solution as a bug /insect repellant.

[Tom]

I doubt that borax would help or hinder as a lubricant.  Even if the lubricant is flooding the blade, I don't believe that you would get enough on the board to justify mixing a preservative in the lubricant.

I basically use water in varying amounts.  Usually it works.  Cutting speed, sharpness of the blade and the angle of the blade, all have to do with gumming from the saw's perspective.  The first thing to do is  make sure that the blade is properly set and sharpened.  Then that the saw is aligned (tuned) as good as you ca get it.  After that, then consider lubricants. 

I'm against petroleum products for lubricants and have said so many times.  Still, you have to do what you have to do and even that, in the case of fat lighter, might be an option. 

[Dave Shepard]

We don't have any fat lighter around here (that's yellow pine, right?),  but I resawed a few old hand hewn beams that would completely gum up a new band in 14 feet. Would have to clean with diesel in between cuts. Don't know what it was, but it was bad. Had some gumming problems today, the lube nozzles got plugged. :D Was ok when I got it unplugged. I like being able to "set and forget" the Lube Mizer running cooking oil, something I wouldn't want to do on the old mill using diesel.


Dave

[Engineer]

Probably a dumb question, but doesn't the cooking oil and the dish soap cancel each other out?  I'd run oil or a diesl mix, or dish soap and water, but not mixed like that.   I haven't tried the pinesol and water mix but I plan to as soon as I get my lube tank reattached to the mill.  I have done very well with Dawn dish soap and water but I run through it really fast.

[Dave Shepard]

The dish soap is needed to get the oil to mix with the water, so it has basically become a water soluble oil. The purpose of the oil is to create a film on the band that the sap can't stick to. Seems to work well so far.


Dave

[Chuck White]

I fill up my water jug then add a cup of "used" cooking oil and top it off with 5-6 Tbsp of Dawn dish soap.
The dish soap allows the oil and water to mix.

I set my drip rate to about 2-3 drips per second.

I was advised by the folks at Hannibal Woodmizer not to run to much water/lube because the lumber will be plastered with sawdust!


Note: Used cooking oil is normally "free", from restaurants or in my case, neighbors who like to deep-fry turkey, chicken or fish!

[Engineer]

I was advised by the folks at Hannibal Woodmizer not to run to much water/lube because the lumber will be plastered with sawdust!

Yep, had that problem myself, and it causes further problems if you leave it on the lumber.  I cut a couple thousand feet of fresh pine about three years ago and left the wet sawdust on the boards.  It froze, thawed, rotted, molded, and became a buffet for several hundred trillion (well, maybe not that many) carpenter ants.  Other boards that got a stiff brushing were fine.

[Dave Shepard]

I would say "several hundred trillion" is a fair and appropriate discription of ants eating you hard work. :D I got the recipe from Hannibal as well, and was also cautioned against too much lube.


Dave