Thread: Cleaning saw blade

Oven cleaner from the supermarket

I have been successfully using oven cleaner for many years, but some suggest it is not the way to go.

My steps are wear gloves, lay blade on timber strips over newspaper, spray each side and leave for 20-30 minutes. Scrub blade, rinse well and dry blade completely.

I also go with the oven cleaner and further suggest a spray of PTFE on the blade before you cut into a resin rich timber again.

Oven cleaner is not recommended because its alkaline nature apparent attacks the cobalt binder in the tungsten carbide. I suspect this is only a problem if you leave the teeth soaking in the cleaner for long periods (say overnight) whereas a 15 minute soak is not going to cause anywhere near as much of a problem.

I forgot where I read about it but I have found strongly brewed coffee works but the blade does need to be soaked overnight.

In our workshop all blades are cleaned regularly with a mild solution of sodium carbonate. Its the stuff added to washing powders, its a mild alkaline and does an amazing job of breaking down resin's and extractives. Its dirt cheap a few dollars for a kg in the laundry isle and you only need 1/2 a teaspoon per liter of cold water. I also soak my router bits in it to clean up the resin.

You can keep the solution and use it again and again.

Sodium carbonate is not the same is sodium BI-carbonate the latter is used for baking. Easy to ask for one and to get the other.

Here is another option that I find works quite well
Blade Saver

Originally Posted by dr4g0nfly

I also go with the oven cleaner and further suggest a spray of PTFE on the blade before you cut into a resin rich timber again.

Thanks heaps fellers for all the advise. Excuse my ignorance but what is PTFE ?.

In this thread they are talking about Citrus based cleaners (like "Oomph") for the same problem on routers.

Originally Posted by Pariss

Thanks heaps fellers for all the advise. Excuse my ignorance but what is PTFE ?.

PTFE is Teflon; example here
CRC Dry Glide with PTFE | Dry film lubricating friction treatment

There's plenty of other brands around as well.