Coffee to Clean Saw Blades

[Kevin Gregoire]

i have been doing some research for ways to clean pitch off saw blades and
heard the new Simple Green was good to use but there website said it isnt
good for long term soaking as it would cause Cobalt leaching? but i think this
is for the standard Simple Green but will have to do some testing i guess?
check out the info at the SG site http://www.simplegreen.com/solutions_cleaning_tips.php?sid=&action=artikel&cat=15&id=126&artlang=en&highlight=carbide&application=Blades,%20Carbide%20and%20Saw%20Blades
and they say Spray - Wipe - Rinse is the way to do it.

but they also say that good old black coffee is best to use for long term
soaking of carbide blades. sure would be a cheap way to go!

has anyone tried coffee for soaking and if so, how well does it work?

[Todd Franks]

Blasphemy, I'm a bit of a coffee snob. Good black coffee costs over $10 per pound. Folgers costs much less. Hardly seems like a cost effective cleaning method.:D

[Bob Wingard]

Blasphemy, I'm a bit of a coffee snob. Good black coffee costs over $10 per pound. Folgers costs much less. Hardly seems like a cost effective cleaning method.:D

Roast yer' own .. buy in bulk .. GOOD coffee should be more like $3-$4 per. pound. Check our ccmcoffee.com .. .. .. lotsa' good prices, even for pre-roasted.

[Howard Acheson]

Freud recommends kerosene. I've used that for the last 10+ years and it works fine.

[scott spencer]

Coffee's well suited for inspiring the ambition to clean my blades ....never tried delegating the whole task to coffee! :D

[John Thompson]

As Simple Green mentions.. spray.. wipe.. dry and be done with it if you clean them requlary. Ain't wastin' my coffee on a blade and don't have time to tie blades up for long term soaking as I am in the shop daily. Just spray.. wipe.. dry and drink coffee during the process as coffee has a religious ring to it for anyone that has been in the military. :D

[Jeffrey Makiel]

I'm concerned that soaking in coffee may also leach the cobalt.

Therefore...

Spray with coffee and neutralize with cream and sugar.

-Jeff :)

[Tom Walz]

Cleaning saw blades
http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/Cleaning-Saw-Blades.html

Actually the coffee, being acidic, may affect the Cobalt binder. Even if it does affect the cobalt binder it just means a few carbide grains are more likely to fall out which will slightly accelerate dulling. 1. Saw tips are designed with this in mind since wood acids are a much bigger problem. 2. Acids attack metals and form a material on the surface that protects the rest of the metal so further attack is much slower. Think of flash rust as an example. 3. You are never going to remove enough cobalt to make any difference in a reasonable cleaning cycle of, say 24, hours.

When I test carbide in the lab I put it in various acids. I mostly watch to see how much it bubbles as an indicator of the acid attack since it is hard to see any differences without very sophisticated equipment such as scanning electron microscopes.

Tom

[Bill Eshelman]

Coffee works good for cleaning beer out of my system.:D

[Josiah Bartlett]

Ever seen an old coffee mug? Its full of crud. I wouldn't trust coffee as a solvent.