Remedies for removing "Sap" from Bandsaw blades.

[Donny Lawson]

I've been cutting up alot of blanks lately and my blade is covered with pitch(sap). What are your home solutions for this?

[Ted Calver]

More than just blades. It gets on the tires too. I only did pitchy wood once and cleaned up with goo gone IIRC, or maybe mineral spirits. All I remember is that it was not a fun time.

[Steve Kubien]

For your blades, oven cleaner. Coil it up, put it in a large foil roasting pan, spray the bejeezus out of it, scrub with an old toothbrush, rinse, dry and you're away to the races.

For the tires, 120grit.

[Tim Rinehart]

I use some sort of pitch cleaner, most are similar. I start by UNPLUGGING the saw, then rotate one of the wheels backwards holding a piece of scotch rite doused with pitch cleaner. Once it starts softening up, I'll take a hard piece of wood to push against the pitch to help break it loose. Works pretty good. I think my cleaner is CMT brand, but others are probably effective as well.

[Tim Rinehart]

Steve, I like it! I'm gonna try that next time.

[Harry Robinette]

I keep a piece of plywood around and after I cut any wood with pitch I cut a couple slices from the plywood. If I'm cutting alot I do like Steve except I use CMT blade and bit, oven cleaner will pit your blade and is very bad for the new micro grain carbide if your using carbide blades.

[Donny Lawson]

A man at the bandsaw mill said he uses "Pine Sol" cleaner for his blades and I tried it and it works great. It does a great job on the tires too. After cleaning add a little "Pam" kitchen pan spray to a cloth and wipe down your blade. That works too. You learn something new everyday.

[Paul Gilbert]

Turpentine is distilled from pine tree stumps. It will dissolve pitch better than any other solvent Mother Nature knows best.

[robert baccus]

So is pin-sol and both are top notch cleaners. Sounds silly and maybe useless but I always shoot a bit of WD40 on the blade when I turn it on and seems to help. That may be like cutting the ham bone off exactly 1&1/2 inches every ham.

[Ron Rutter]

It is amazing how well a table saw blade will cut after a dishwasher cycle ( or just soak in a powdered dishwasher soap solution & a bristle brush scrub) I would just coil it up and put it through a dishwasher cycle!! Cheers. Ron.

[Carl Civitella]

Coil it up into a flat pan and use Baking Soda in a water solution. You won`t even need gloves. Carl

[Faust M. Ruggiero]

Donny,
I have been taking preventative measures to stop pitch build up on the blade and my guides. I spray the blade with Boeshield (lubricant make by Boeing Aircraft) before pitch can build up. A squirt while the blade is running holds for several blanks before needing to be renewed.
faust

[Erik Johanson]

I have used and have great success with the pitch cleaning kit from rockler. comes with a plastic pan and wire brush along with the cleaner. I have used that to clean table saw blades, router bits and bandsaw blades in my high school wood shop. Once I mix the solution I keep it in the pan for about half a year before replacing. It gets quite a bit of use, my beginer students are pretty hard on equipment.

[Gus Dundon]

Pinesol will do or wash it with soda. Check this out. It is always important to do regular cleaning on saw blades.

[David M Peters]

Sorry to bring up such an old thread but it came in very handy for me today. Went to put on my "bowl blank blade" and discovered that the inside surface had a nasty buildup of sap and dust which had the consistency of 120-grit sandpaper. First time I noticed it but I'm sure it had been building up for a while. My tires too had a rough texture which I've kind of mitigated with a green scrubby and alcohol but not fully. Well after trying and failing to clean that blade with mineral spirits I googled the problem and found this thread which led me try out Pine Sol. Holy cow it worked! The blade is amazingly spot-free and so are my tires. I didn't use full-strength concentrate just some mixed up to a normal-ish proportion.