Is Your Saw Blade Really Dull or just Dirty?
A sure sign that your table saw blade needs attention is when it becomes difficult to push the workpiece through the cut. Or when the shop fills full of smoke as you try to cut that piece of maple. That’s what happened to me in my continuing saga of saw blades. I mentioned in this post that I had a couple of blades that needed sharpened. Now I’m not so sure. I spent some time the other evening working on them with an old tooth brush and Boeshield Blade and Bit Resin, Pitch, and Gum Remover.
In ShopNotes No. 96, we had an article about Choosing and Using Bit and Blade Cleaners, including home-made cleaners. A number of folks wrote in to tell us that some of our ideas were crazy or that their solution worked better. We’ve had suggestions from oven cleaner to Formula 409. I say, use whatever works for you. For me, I tend toward the commercial cleaners. Our guys here in the shop seem to like CMT’s Formula 2050 Blade and Bit Cleaner.
Whatever chemical you use, chance are you’re going to need to use a little elbow grease, too. As a matter of fact, it took a couple of applications of cleaner while I was busy scrubbing the residue off of the teeth. I had the blade on several thicknesses of old newspaper and sprayed on the cleaner. After scrubbing one side clean, I flipped the blade over and worked on it. That left all the crud in between the teeth and on the face of each tooth. Here, I stood the blade up, sprayed on some more cleaner, and worked my way around the blade with the toothbrush. A little wiping with a rag removed the last of the residue and cleaner.
You’ll be amazed at how your blades look after a good cleaning. I inspected mine closely and couldn’t find any chipped or dull teeth. But it’s hard to make that judgement on looks alone. I’m anxious to make a few test cuts and see if I need to take the next step and actually have them sharpened.