Cleaning greenwood gunk out of my bandsaw

[Kalia Kliban]

Whenever I process green wood I end up with compacted wood gunk plated onto my bandsaw blade, wheels and guide bearings. It's a major pain to clean it all off. Surely I'm not the only person to be dealing with this. Is there a trick to it or are we all swearing under our breath every time we process a load of wood?

 

[Glenn Lefley]

You can use a soap water emulsion. Works good in production shop. But also Pam cooking spray works just as well. Put it on before you start cutting. Will come off a lot easier.

 

[hockenbery]

I have used easy off oven cleaner and a soft wire brush.
take the blade off. Wear nitrile gloves.

 

[Kalia Kliban]

Those of you who've responded, do you take your whole guide assembly apart as well? And what works well for getting caked wood goo off the tires?

 

[Richard Coers]

I scrape the tires with a cabinet maker's card scraper.

 

[Russell Nugent]

I use simple green and a grey 3m pad. I haven't really had any luck with using anything to keep it from building up. If im going to process a bunch of green wood I'll use a blade till it builds up, clean the tires, change the blade, throw the gunked up one in a tub of simple green, then just clean them all off when I'm done.

 

[hockenbery]

My guides don’t gunk up.
The tires I use a scotch brite pad

 

[Forrest Forschmiedt]

My Grizzly G0555LX came with roller bearing guides. Doing some research here and elsewhere online I found lots of folks saying that solid guides are better for green wood than roller guides. Swapping mine out for solid guides made a big difference in reducing the amount of gunk buildup. It seems that the solid guides, if adjusted pretty near snug to the blade, scrape the blade as you go vs. roller guides that just compact it onto the blade. It did not eliminate it, in fact I need to go clean up today from cutting wet maple and birch, but it did help a lot.

Don't know what band saw you have but Grizzly has the guide holders and solid guides to replace the wheel guides for their saws. Carter is one maker that has guide holders for band saws. I didn't like the guides Grizzly supplied. They seem to be some sort of plastic that melts when the blade rubs against them much at all. I replaced them with Cool Blocks a few days ago. We'll see how they work over a bit of time.

 

[Dean Center]

I feel your pain.

Spraying with Pam prior to cutting helps, but is not a complete solution. After cutting a piece, while the gunk is still moist and soft, you can cross cut a dry piece of something and that will clean some of the stuff off. If there's still more gunk, you can put the edge of the freshly cut piece of dry wood up against the side of the running blade, behind the gullets, and scrape off more gunk, from each side of blade. Once it's fully dried on there, it can be chipped off A NON-RUNNING blade with your finger nail or a plastic scraper of some sort, though this is a hassle. It can also be chipped off the wheels in the same way. I haven't figured out a way to get fresh, wet gunk off the wheels.

Simple green and a brush is an appealing suggestion. Oven cleaner is nasty stuff, but may need to give it a try. Thanks for bringing this up!

 

[Don Wattenhofer]

A mixture of pine sol and water works good on my Wood Miser band mill but that is run outside and the blade would gum up and jam in the cut without it.
I guess that isn't much help for upright band saws.

 

[Kalia Kliban]

My Grizzly G0555LX came with roller bearing guides. Doing some research here and elsewhere online I found lots of folks saying that solid guides are better for green wood than roller guides. Swapping mine out for solid guides made a big difference in reducing the amount of gunk buildup. It seems that the solid guides, if adjusted pretty near snug to the blade, scrape the blade as you go vs. roller guides that just compact it onto the blade. It did not eliminate it, in fact I need to go clean up today from cutting wet maple and birch, but it did help a lot.
Don't know what band saw you have but Grizzly has the guide holders and solid guides to replace the wheel guides for their saws. Carter is one maker that has guide holders for band saws. I didn't like the guides Grizzly supplied. They seem to be some sort of plastic that melts when the blade rubs against them much at all. I replaced them with Cool Blocks a few days ago. We'll see how they work over a bit of time.

I've got a Powermatic bandsaw. I'll check about whether I can get replacement guide heads. I've worked with Cool Blocks before and they're good. The roller bearings are pretty fiddly, especially since the locking screws have a tendency to come loose and then the bearings jiggle out of position.

 

[Kalia Kliban]

A couple of folks have recommended using a lubricant (Pam spray) before cutting. Would a silicon-based lube work also? I'm just concerned about interaction between the vege-oil/alcohol mixture in the cooking spray and my bandsaw's tires. Next time I do a full clean-out of the saw, before I do another greenwood run, I'll try lubing the blade.

 

[Kent Jaffrey]

I had some trouble with Build up on the blade and bearing guides and found that if I rub a block of paraffin was on the back and sides of the blade before cutting the blank it helped a lot.

 

[Karl Loeblein]

If you have rubber tires then you might consider going to urethane tires because the gunk might not stick to it as well as rubber tires. As far as the blades go... I use an air drill with a wire-brush to clean the gunk off my blade between cuttings, and then apply a mix of wax and mineral oil (oil stirred into melted wax to soft it) in order to lubricant the blade. Sadly it doesn't take long for this coating to wear off when cutting green wood, but I found that to be true for any lubricant suggestions (Pam, WD-40, wax, blade lubricant stick, etc...).

 

[Steven Forrest]

Kalia,
I can't much help for prevention, but the simple green works great. I soaked my blade in it for a bit and all the baked on crud came off easily. I did try DryCote (I had some left over from years ago) and it seemed to help - a little. Have you spoken to any of the big sawyers about how they handle it?

 

[Dave Bunge]

My saw has solid guide blocks. I used cool blocks for a while. The gunk on the blade was harder than the cool blocks and would wear grooves into them pretty quickly. I've switched to ceramic blocks from SpaceAge Ceramics. I haven't noticed any wear in them after about a year of occasional use. And they do a good job scraping the gunk off of the blade.

To clean the blade in place, I've run the blade backwards, by manually turning the upper wheel, while holding the tip of a blade screwdriver or a utility knife against the side of the blade. Only clean the back of the blade, behind the gullets this way. It's best to unplug the machine first.

For the tires, I wet the surface with water on a paper towel, let it soak for a while, then use a scotchbrite pad to scrape off the gunk. Again by running the wheel backwards by hand and with the blade still installed. This has worked well for me.

I have noticed that very dull saw blades tend to generate more gunk. I had a horrible time with some white oak that became much less horrible when I switched to a new blade.

Dave

 

[JeffSmith]

I used to get this buildup before adding a brush that cleans the lower wheel while running and hooking up the dc to the lower shroud with a y to divert a little vac around the lower guides. That eliminated about 2/3 of the gunk and made cleaning tires and roller guides a lot easier. I turn a lot of bl maple and madrone with very high water content. The only way I found to really deal with it is to resign myself to spend the time required to clean up when done. Blade cleaner or simple green both seem to work well for the final cleaning.

 

[Dean Center]

Silicone can do funny things to epoxy and, I've also heard, finish. I would not recommend using it in the same room that you do finishing.

 

[Zach LaPerriere]

A couple of folks have recommended using a lubricant (Pam spray) before cutting. Would a silicon-based lube work also? I'm just concerned about interaction between the vege-oil/alcohol mixture in the cooking spray and my bandsaw's tires. Next time I do a full clean-out of the saw, before I do another greenwood run, I'll try lubing the blade.

I don't think Pam is a problem. I've used it on the same bandsaw for five years, and my father first learned of the Pam trick in the early 70s as a machinist at machine sales and repair outfit.

There's also a Lennox blade lubricant stick a friend gave me, and it works pretty well too, especially for extra hard tropical woods.

Further, the Timberwolf green wood blades have been the cleanest for me...3/8" X 3 TPI to memory...but they still get it too.

Soft maple is the worst wood I've cut...the gunk varies widely by species.

Drying the wood a little can also help, if you can avoid cracking. I have it pretty good there, living in the cool Alaskan rainforest. Good luck.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

I have used a knife with blade pointed downward to scrape the saw blade.

This thread reminded me of something I saw when I was in HS. The old timers when using a crosscut saw would lube the blade with motor oil........brushed on with straw on a pine limb.

 

[Russell Nugent]

I have used a knife with blade pointed downward to scrape the saw blade.

This thread reminded me of something I saw when I was in HS. The old timers when using a crosscut saw would lube the blade with motor oil........brushed on with straw on a pine limb.

I do similar with all my hand saws. The paul sellers rag in a can with machine oil. Works amazingly good.