Response from Simple Green about Cleaning Saw Blades

[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/...atalogId=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

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. *#@%*#

Next time I'm going to mix the two together and see what happens.

[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...