Response from Simple Green about Cleaning Saw Blades

[Ben Martin]

I started another post about cleaning blades which led to a bit of a conversation about the use of Simple Green on saw blades:

http://sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=1523044#post1523044

I wanted to start another thread to get this information out there so everybody is in the know, this is posted with Simple Green's permission..

Dear Ben,

Thank you for contacting Simple Green and for your interest in our products.

Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner should not be used to soak saw blades for any period of time. Any application other than spray and wipe is not recommended.

The recommended product for cleaning saw blades is Simple Green Pro HD which has no effect even during long soak times. Simple Green Pro HD can be purchased at Home Depot.

I hope that this information helps. If you have further questions about this or other Simple Green products or uses, please feel free to contact me via reply email or directly. My contact information is provided below and my regular business hours are Mon thru Fri from 8 -5 Pacific Standard Time.

Thank you again for your inquiry.

Sincerely,

XXXXXXXXXXXX
Technical and Customer Liaison

[Brandon Weiss]

Thanks for posting. This should go to clear up some of the question about simple green attacking the carbide tips. I'll look for that stuff this afternoon!

[John Shuk]

Out of curiosity, I'd love to know the why behind it. It seems counterintuitive that a presumably stronger concentration would prove less damaging.

[Dave Sweeney]

IIRC, a couple of years back there was another response from them that recommended yet another one of their products. It was something that they made for the aviation industry if memory serves me.

I've been using the regular Simple Green for years without any problems. I do clean my blades on a pretty regular basis but don't let them soak for much more than a minute or two.

[glenn bradley]

I am glad you posted. I thought this was old news (the other recommended product was "Extreme Simple Green") but we still get folks who swear by cleaners that are declared by the makers as unfit for the purpose. Thanks again and be safe. The best way to keep cleanup simple and safe seems to be frequency. It just doesn't take that long to set a blade in some safe solution while you are doing something else for 5 minutes and then use a soft plastic brush to get the tough stuff. If you are having to really go at it, you waited too long between cleanings.

[Will Rowland]

From what I understand based on several discussions on aviation forums, the "Pro HD" version of Simple Green is the same as the "Aviation" version.

[Larry Frank]

I would really like to know what is in the Simple Green that can attack saw blades. I have been using oven cleaner for a long time and it works great but you have to be careful with in and your skin.

Yes, I know that there is a lot of people who believe that the oven cleaner will attack the carbide but that is not true based upon one of the Creekers who is in the carbide business.

[Ben Martin]

Here is another link from a post on Simple Green's site. I doubt they would get much more into what in their product is doing the attacking because that would get close to giving up the formula of their product, or at least the active ingredient.

http://tinyurl.com/2a9at3v

[Dave Lehnert]

Out of curiosity, I'd love to know the why behind it. It seems counterintuitive that a presumably stronger concentration would prove less damaging.

I will have to look and see what is different about the two.

[Mark Ashmeade]

Interesting. I was unaware of any issues with Simple Green.

It so happens that a month or so ago, I wanted to cut a cove in a nice 6' piece of maple, and cleaned my Freud 40T Diablo blade with Simple Green prior to making the cove.

When I examined the blade after the cut, I had lost a tooth, which was definitely there when I cleaned it directly before.

It didn't soak for an eternity, maybe 5 minutes. I was thinking that the process of cutting the cove (2" wide, 3/8 deep) had caused the tooth to depart. Perhaps it did, but this seems a bit of a coincidence.

It sure does do a good job of cleaning pitch though!

[Neil Brooks]

I think there's enough information, coming from the manufacturer, to say that -- technically -- there is probably SOME risk, to using full-strength SG, and soaking your blades.

There. LOTS of qualifiers.

I have a parts washer, that's full of 50/50 SG and water. I soak my blades, in the parts washer, for about five minutes. That's all I ever need to loosen up the sap, gunk, and ... muck ... enough to clean the blade with a nylon bristle brush.

But ... again ... there's SOME risk. Everybody should probably make their own risk:reward determination, and do what they're most comfortable with.

I think there's a fair number of cleaners -- specifically for ww blades, and/or general purpose cleaners (including this other variant, made by Simple Green) that -- if you want to get the risk down to near-zero -- it's worth using something else.

Life's short, though, and ... I'm just going to keep rolling them half-green dice ;)

[Neil Brooks]

Interesting. I was unaware of any issues with Simple Green.

It so happens that a month or so ago, I wanted to cut a cove in a nice 6' piece of maple, and cleaned my Freud 40T Diablo blade with Simple Green prior to making the cove.

When I examined the blade after the cut, I had lost a tooth, which was definitely there when I cleaned it directly before.

It didn't soak for an eternity, maybe 5 minutes. I was thinking that the process of cutting the cove (2" wide, 3/8 deep) had caused the tooth to depart. Perhaps it did, but this seems a bit of a coincidence.

It sure does do a good job of cleaning pitch though!

Interesting.

Yours came in, while I was typing mine.

In a perfect world, we'd get the analysis that would tell us, for sure, whether SG caused your tooth to loosen ... via the "breakdown" process that SG talks about ... with its product ... and that others talk about ... with oven cleaner.

Obviously, the notion of a tooth on a decent blade, coming off at XXXXrpm, and launching it forward, at XXXmph ... while on the saw ... isn't particularly appealing.

[Dan Hintz]

Since it leaches cobalt from the base metal, you run an increasing risk of microfractures. Just as with airplanes, microfractures and constant vibration lead to catastrophic failures at the crack line. This means flying teeth...

EDIT: Oh, and a five minute soak would not be enough to cause a tooth loss a few minutes after... it's a long-term issue.

[Neil Brooks]

Since it leaches cobalt from the base metal, you run an increasing risk of microfractures. Just as with airplanes, microfractures and constant vibration lead to catastrophic failures at the crack line. This means flying teeth...

Awwwwwwwww, Man :o

Why am I re-thinking my 50/50 mix now ?

Ya' know ... when I was a kid ... we .....

Aw, never mind ;)

[Mark Ashmeade]

Obviously, the notion of a tooth on a decent blade, coming off at XXXXrpm, and launching it forward, at XXXmph ... while on the saw ... isn't particularly appealing.

Meh, as the kids say. Wear safety glasses and you'll be alright.

I did a quick bit of math. 3450 rpm off the donk, and assume pulleys are equal size, means 31.416" per minute blade speed for a 10" saw. That's 6.503 million inches/hr, or 102.64mph. A baseball at 100mph might hurt, but won't kill you. A tiny saw tooth that weighs a gram or so will be mildly painful, as long as it stays away from soft membranes (like eyes). Also, it's much more likely to go into the cabinet than fire out.

I'll stick with the SG (though I may now dilute it!).

[Ben Martin]

I'll stick with the SG (though I may now dilute it!).

Unless Home Depot is a long drive away, just choose the Pro HD bottle next to the regular SG, peace of mind!

Does anybody know about the price of Pro HD compared to regular? Just for a wondering mind....

EDIT: Answered my own question:

http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Search?keyword=simple+green&langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

$4 more than the regular stuff...

[Chip Lindley]

And now even Simple Green is on the NoNo List! I have used Easy-Off oven cleaner for 25 years! It's cheap and there is no "soak time". Spray it on, scrub with a brass-bristle brush, rinse under tap water, and dry. Total time to thoroughly clean a blade--5 minutes! IMO, this brief exposure of my saw blade to sodium hydroxide (or any other cleaner) is of little consequence. But, Don't drink the stuff! Don't get it in your eyes!

From my reading, there is no 100% safe cleaner for thoroughly cleaning carbide blades. Lye works. Ammonia works! Brake cleaners work! Simple Green works! But they all have their own particular down sides. There is some suspicion cast on every method. But, practically speaking, how many here can verify and attest that one cleaner or another DID INFACT CAUSE their saw blade to fail?

Manufacturers have a vested interest to limit their liabilitiy for the use of their product that may cause collateral damages. If there is one chance in 100,000 that something negative may occur, that company will certainly issue a disclaimer. This extends to blade makers also. If Freud recommends against using Easy-Off, and you use it anyway, maybe that is one blade with limited lifetime warranty they will not have to replace! All manufacturers ideally want every user to proceed at his own risk.

[John McClanahan]

Chip, you said it well!

John

[David Hostetler]

Now just exactly how fast does a table saw blade spin?

Assuming the blade spin manages to hurl one of those SHARP carbide teeth out, the chances are pretty good the direction will be somewhere toward the operator of the saw...

Not being nit picky here I hope, but I try to avoid shrapnel wounds no matter the source.

Rockler seems to offer their bit and blade cleaning kit for about $20.00 several times a year, and the quart bottles of cleaner concentrate that make 1 gallon of cleaner. (Actually right now they have a sale on the kit, INCLUDING a free 10" 40T Irwin Marathon blade for $19.99) with no worries of carbide projectiles...

So assuming you have to soak container, and the brass brush, even at $14.99 regular price for the pitch and resin remover concentrate, I would think the extra $$ is well worth the peace of mind it buys...

Yeah I know, folks have been using oven cleaner, simple green, and whatever else to clean their blades with no problem for years... But then again there are certainly safety risks inherent, and they are risks that can be easily avoided at the cost of a few measly dollars... While I am not flush with cash by any means, I certainly am willing to spend a few dollars to keep things safe.

[Mark Ashmeade]

Well the math I posted on the previous page tells me the blade spins at 3450 rpm, if the pulleys are equal. They are close to it on mine. If anything, the arbor pulley is slightly larger, meaning the speed will be less. The linear velocity of the carbide tips will be of the order of 100mph.

Kinetic energy is given by 0.5mv^2.

A baseball from a good pitcher travels at ~100mph, and weighs 140 grams. A carbide tooth isn't going to weigh any more than a gram or two, so it's probably fair to say that the impact of a carbide tooth would be of the order of 100 times less than a baseball. Hardly earth shattering, as long as you wear safety glasses.

[Tom Walz]

Saw tips should not come off the saw as a complete tip ever. The technology to prevent this exists and is widely used to the point where it is industry standard. .

Saw tips will break and leave part of the tip in the joint which is a different issue.

If you want to send me some good close up shots of the failed tip I will be happy to analyze it.

Chemicals may leach some of the cobalt binder. This may cause micro-fracturing. However the chemical attack on the cobalt is typically very, very limited as it forms a residue of inert salts which stops the chemical action. This is actually a huge issue cutting green Western Red Cedar. The acid in the cedar attacks the cobalt and the brushing of the wood fibers over the saw tips keeps clearing out the inert salts so that the acids can get to fresh Cobalt.

To counter this many manufacturers use a nano-grain carbide which greatly reduces the exposure of the Cobalt binder. Another solution is a cobalt / chrome binder which is sort of like the difference between steel and stainless steel as far as corrosion susceptibility. .

Our market is finished saw for industry as well as carbide tips for custom saw builders. Chemical resistance is extremely important as is micro-fracturing. We have about 17 different factors we consider in carbide wear. Some are much more important in certain cases than others.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/How-Carbide-Wears.html

Personally, and not professionally, I agree that the simple green folks are being cautious which is pretty typically with really high quality companies.

A couple years ago I did a survey of all the cleaners I could find that anyone recommended both in the saw industry and on web sites. I also did my own tests.

The cheapest was a Barbeque cleaner from the local Janitorial supply. I could not find any cleaners that damaged the braze alloy or the carbide. This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen just that the effect was very, very small.

Here is the report.
http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/Cleaning-Saw-Blades.html#sawfiler (http://www.carbideprocessors.com/pages/Cleaning-Saw-Blades.html#sawfiler)

The only cleaners I don’t like the spray on brake cleaners. They are great products but this is just the wrong use for them.

Note: This stuff is all really cutting edger research. It is a huge issue in the industry. There are thousands of carbide grades and thousands of materials being cut so the issue of chemical interaction is huge. I don’t know of anyone on the scientific side who is prepared to issue a flat statement either way.

[Larry Frank]

The reply from Tom Walz was excellent. It is so refreshing to get actual test data rather than just old information or wrong information.

I think that I will continue to use the oven cleaner but may investigate a couple of the others that are not as hazardous.

[Cody Colston]

I have used Easy-Off oven cleaner for 25 years! It's cheap and there is no "soak time". Spray it on, scrub with a brass-bristle brush, rinse under tap water, and dry. Total time to thoroughly clean a blade--5 minutes!


+1 and nary a problem.

[Will Overton]

+1 and nary a problem.


I used oven cleaner for too many years to remember. Just recently I decided to play it safe and cleaned all my blades with Simple Green. *#@%*# http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/censored.gif

Next time I'm going to mix the two together and see what happens. http://www.runemasterstudios.com/graemlins/images/goodnight.gif

[Phil Hansen]

Assuming the blade spin manages to hurl one of those SHARP carbide teeth out, the chances are pretty good the direction will be somewhere toward the operator of the saw.

Just my thoughts and I may be thinking wrong but:
If a tooth is going to come off a blade it would be after contact with the wood and the carbide piece would then end up in the cabinet on the downturn after being removed by physical contact. Not flying off after travelling another 270 odd degrees.

Phil

[Chip Lindley]

...Rockler seems to offer their bit and blade cleaning kit for about $20.00 several times a year, and the quart bottles of cleaner concentrate that make 1 gallon of cleaner...

...even at $14.99 regular price for the pitch and resin remover concentrate, I would think the extra $$ is well worth the peace of mind it buys...

Yeah I know, folks have been using oven cleaner, simple green, and whatever else to clean their blades with no problem for years... But then again there are certainly safety risks inherent, and they are risks that can be easily avoided at the cost of a few measly dollars... While I am not flush with cash by any means, I certainly am willing to spend a few dollars to keep things safe.

Hmm David...and What's in that Rockler Stuff? Inquiring minds wanna know!

[Lorne Steed]

Hi ; I have a fairly simple solution that works quite well for me- all I do is run the saw blade under very hot water while holding it with rubber gloves to prevent discomfort and scrub the heck out of it with a bottle brush . It comes clean very quickly- actually it comes new blade clean and no chemicals are used -not even soap!

Lorne Steed

P.S. We live on a acreage with well water that is fairly high PH ( 9.1) so this may be a factor. I have not tried city water.

[Howard Acheson]

>>>> I know that there is a lot of people who believe that the oven cleaner will attack the carbide but that is not true based upon one of the Creekers who is in the carbide business

Here is some info from Freud on the subject. They have run many tests in their factory on this issue.

QUOTE

Definitely avoid oven cleaner and other caustics. They attack the cobalt binder in the carbide and can lead to carbide failure (translates to tiny missiles of carbide at 100+ mph). Also, Freud and some other brands of blades have a tri-metal brazing foil that uses copper alloy for a cushioning layer. The copper can also be affected by these cleaners (translates to larger missiles of carbide). We recommend soaking overnight in kerosene in a vented container and using a stiff nylon bristle brush to clean. Teflon coated plates will clean up with a soapy cloth (except for the teeth as mentioned earlier). There are commercial blade cleaning products that are not caustic but we don't officially sanction them.

The manufacturers of Simple Green recommend NOT USING their product for carbide tool cleaning. Freud recommends using kerosene.

Charles M.
Freud, Inc.

CLOSE QUOTE

[Larry Frank]

I think that I might worry if I was going to soak my blade in anything over night. Since I typically put oven cleaner on, brush it with a brass brush and then rinse it off in less than a minute, I am not going to worry about the potential corrosive effects over such a short time period.

If I were making sawblades, I would recommend not using anything other than water to make certain that I could not be blamed if a tooth came off.

[Dan Hintz]

Think of it in these terms when you dismiss the time spent with the chemical on your blade... the faster the stuff loosens the pitch, the more aggressively it's attacking the binder.

You can't have your cake and eat it, too...

[Tom Walz]

1. Saw tips breaking or coming off can fly erratically. The last case I helped analyze was a broken tooth that lodged in an eye. The user had a finish blade and was using it to cut flooring. He was not wearing goggles. The blade hit a nail, the tip broke and parts flew out. Apparently one bounced and lodged in his eye causing permanent vision loss.

Not what you would expect to happen at all but it did.

Finish blades have a different grind and typically a different grade of carbide than nail cutting blades

2. Some of the data quoted here is accurate and presented fairly but it is a few years older or more. There have been huge advances in carbide performance in even the last five years.

3. If anyone wishes I will send them a few saw tips and a couple inches of braze alloy. You can soak it in whatever you wish as long as you wish.

Tom

[David Cefai]

The problem with ALL cleaners is caustic concentration. In a nutshell the hydroxide attacks the brazing. Caustic Soda is Sodium Hydroxide.

Note that most cleaners - and that includes the soap you wash with - have some "caustic" concentration. It is not necessarily due to added caustic soda. Other chemicals, including baking soda, can form small amounts of hydroxide ions (= caustic) in water.

For the non-chemists, a pH greater than 7.0 means hydroxide ions are present. Below 7.0, some acid is present.

Don't Panic! To go from pH8 to 9 needs 10 times the caustic needed to go from 7 to 8. Ditto with acid, going the other way. Your stomach contents have a pH of 0, that's a lot of acid!

Back to woodworking, any tools where Tungsten Carbide is brazed to steel is at risk from high alkalinity cleaners. Some say "cobalt is leached out", this is due to the brazing being attacked.

Dish Washer detergent is very caustic and should be kept on the other side of the house from the workshop ;). I don't have access to Simple Green but it appears that the different formulations have different alkalinities. Aeroplanes use aluminium which is attacked by caustic so if there is a aero grade SG, that seems to be the one to use.

Hope this helped.

[Larry Edgerton]

I have an old electric cooker I use with just plain tap water. I wait till I have 20 or so blades, put them in the pan, fill with water and bring to a boil for 20 minutes or so, let cool down slowly, pull them out of the water, and lightly brush any residue away. Mostly they are clean already. I dry them with compressed air and a terry towel, spray them with Top Cote and put them away. Has worked well for me for years.

I am having a problem however with the AZEK I have been working with lately. Haven't found a good way to clean it or stop it from sticking to the sides of the blade blank in the first place. In the shop I have found that the Freud industrial blades with the red coating and the larger kerf [more clearance] work well to stop buildup on the sides of the blade, but I have not found what works for the job site saws, particularly the slide saw where no heavy blade is available.

[rick carpenter]

I have an old electric cooker I use with just plain tap water. I wait till I have 20 or so blades, put them in the pan, fill with water and bring to a boil for 20 minutes or so, let cool down slowly,...

Yeah, I wondered about boiling them. Does 20 min in boiling water do anything to the blade itself? Seems like some manufacturing stresses might be unleashed. Oh well, I'll try this but with a much shorter soak time, take out and hit with kerosene and brass brush, then back in the water to cool.

Is there anything to put on the blades to lessen build-up? Maybe hitting them with WD40 every 5-10 min of cutting? If that would help, compare the time to do that with the downtime of a blade-off cleaning procedure. Thoughts on any of this?

[Dan Hintz]

Your stomach contents have a pH of 0, that's a lot of acid!
Minor correction... typical gastric acid is in the 2-3pH range. A pH of 0 would be quite fearsome indeed...




On the boiling. Boiling water doesn't get that hot, but I tend to shy away from heating metal in such a manner as I would hate to slowly remove the temper from anything. YMMV...

[Mike Davis NC]

I think the saw blade speed math was off a bit.

I come up with somewhere around 750 feet per second which is near the low end of a .22 bullet's speed. I would not want to get hit with that.

[John Lanciani]

I think the saw blade speed math was off a bit.

I come up with somewhere around 750 feet per second which is near the low end of a .22 bullet's speed. I would not want to get hit with that.


No. A 10" blade turning at 4000 rpm has a tip speed of 175 feet per second which is 119 mph. Considering the minimal mass of a broken carbide saw tooth, the only real chance for an injury would be a direct strike to the eye. I've had more than one blade shed a few teeth and it's just not that big of a deal, especially if the saw is properly guarded (I use a brett guard for virtually every cut).

I personally consider sticking my hand out of the car window on the highway much more dangerous; a rock thrown up by a passing truck will have much more kinetic energy than a saw tip, and judging by how many windshields I've had to have replaced it's much more likely that I'll be hit by a rock.

[Bert McMahan]

Poster above me is a spambot, copy/pasted working directly from this article:https://www.thespruce.com/cleaning-saw-blades-1398304

[Alex Zeller]

Back in my younger days I did commercial glass work. We used a 15" chop saw with a carbide tooth blade. We always had a couple spares because teeth would break off pretty often. We would use beeswax to help lubricate the blade, it helped some. At any given time we had at least one blade out getting new teeth brazed on. Sometimes they would fracture, other times the whole tooth would be gone. Aluminum is much harder on blades than wood so I would expect to loose more teeth. I don't ever recall actually knowing when a tooth broke off. The biggest issue was when hot aluminum shavings would land on your skin. Back then we didn't always wear hearing protection or safety glasses (with age comes wisdom).

I have a 40 gallon parts washer and I'm cheap so it has kerosine in it. A few minutes under the stream and they clean up just fine. I suppose if I had a woodworking store close by I might buy a specialty product. I have been tempted to try a citrus based cleaner that you can buy at the grocery store. The orange based hand cleaners seam to cut right through most anything I've gotten on my hands.

[Carl Hunsinger]

On the boiling. Boiling water doesn't get that hot, but I tend to shy away from heating metal in such a manner as I would hate to slowly remove the temper from anything. YMMV...

When a blade is burning wood in a cut, it's getting a lot hotter than 100C. So a quick boil should be safe.

Carl

[Frederick Skelly]

Poster above me is a spambot, copy/pasted working directly from this article: https://www.thespruce.com/cleaning-saw-blades-1398304]

This is certainly an interesting (5 star) thread. But it seems rather silly to have revived an 8 yr old thread just to tell us this. Just my opinion...