Cleaning saw blades using electrolysis 2

[waynewa]

Hello,

The saw blades are made of hardened steel with brazed on carbide teeth. We would like to clean them of accumulated sap build up using electrolysis but are unsure whether the blades/brazing would suffer any detrimental effects from the process. The blades are free of rust. We would envisage cleaning the blade once every 2 weeks and the process seems to take 20-30 minutes to thoroughly clean the blade.

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[MikeHalloran]

I'd expect the sap to mask the surface so that you'll be removing metal only from the area that's already clean.

... which is probably not what you intend.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[waynewa]

Hi Mike,

I've completed a few tests and have found that within 20-30 minutes most of the sap and resin is removed and floating on top of the water/sodium carbonate brew as a scum. That part of the process seems to work very well. I'm just not sure whether the blade or any of its components will suffer from the electrolysis process.

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[MikeHalloran]

Well, I'll be dipped in, uh, sodium carbonate.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[badservo]

I have used these two products, just spray and wipe, can't remember which is best however they seem to work very well.

http://www.empiremfg.com/products/industrial/bladesaver/index.html

http://www.aroundtheshopinc.com/index.html

 

[moltenmetal]

You'll probably find that any hot alkaline solution will work to dissolve tree resins. There are special commercial preparations but ordinary household oven cleaner works just fine if the blade is hot. I don't know what the electrolysis adds to it at all aside from heat. It does also add risk to the blade and/or braze material if done wrong.

 

[tomwalz]

We tested maybe a half dozen or more saw blade cleaners in the Carbide Processors newsletter about six months ago.

It depends on what you are looking for. There are spray on / wipe off cleaners that work very well. Common practice is a caustic based dip tank. Use a commercial product so that it has an added rinsing agent.

Saw blades are tensioned and improperly applied electric current can warp them. This why electro etched logos are near the bore and not the periphery. (Check the runout after you try this.) Tungsten carbide is WC grains in a cobalt matrix. An electric current will work on the differences in resistivity between the two materials and break down the carbide. If you are going to grind face, top and sides after cleaning then this won’t make a difference. If you are just going to face grind then you leave the top and sides more open to corrosion. Plus they will be dark colored and unattractive to the customer. Both of these can be controlled.

Whichever way you go you will generating gas from the electrolysis. This gas will carry the medium which will greatly add to the safety equipment required. We use a straight caustic solution of 15% at 150F but we do it under a hood with a very strong draft.

It can be done successfully and should be very fast. If you decide to pursue it, let me know. We have couple large rectifiers that we aren’t using anymore and I would be happy to sell them.

Tom


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

 

[waynewa]

Thanks Tom and all who answered.

From what you say Tom the metal will suffer some type of breakdown and thats what I was interested in. If the blades are in the solution for only 10-15 minutes I wonder how much/little breakdown would occur? We were looking to use this process purely for cleaning so grinding/sharpening etc is not something we intended to do along with the cleaning at this stage. Blade warping would depfinatelly be a problem and for that reason alone I think we will move on to other options.

I thought I'd post a link to the process just to ensure we are on the same page. The electrolyte employed for cleaning is water and sodium carbonate (soda ash). After reading various articles on the subject I was left with the impression that metal is not actually exchanged using this method of water electrolysis but obviously this is wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrolysis_of_water

http://www3.telus.net/public/aschoepp/electrolyticrust.html

Thanks again for your input.
Wayne

 

[tomwalz]

Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear.

There may be some effect on the steel but ti will be so small you will never notice it,

Our area is thin kerf blades with long life tips. These blades are carefully tensioned so that they can be as thin as possible and still run true.

My concern was not with the electrolysis so much as the way it was applied. You can buy an electro-etching set to put a logo and other information on saw blades. If you use this too close to the edge of a precision blade you can warp it. My concern was that fixturing a saw blade by clamping the edge might do the same thing.

If you fixtured the blades by suspending them on a rod through the bore you should be fine.

Following is some of our research on cleaners. These folks are filers and are some of the best.

Tom



It is important you clean saw blades before brazing or welding tips. The questions come up as to what is the best cleaner.

Sawfiler Opinions

Victor Da silva
I came up with the tank cut in half & water heater element years ago, except I used an old galvanized pressure tank, which had thicker walls. I use Saw Kleen, distributed by J Tool Express, which, according to the manufacturer, works better when heated. Heating any solution will help soften the pitch & gum, making it easier to brush off.

That being said, I eventually moved up to an ultrasonic tank, which really works great. I still use the Saw Kleen and heat it to about 175 degrees. Brand new units can be costly, although they are a great investment. I searched E Bay for a few weeks until I found a unit that could handle 12" blades laid down or 14" stacked on an angle. I put my saw blades on a galvanized carriage bolt with washers in between and can fit several stacks in at the same time. Nasty old chain saw blades have the gunk brush right off and the hose takes care of the rest.

Bob Cook
You can buy sodium hydroxide/Lye at most janitorial supply houses in 50 # bags for around $2.00 a pound. A stiff wire hanger suspending each individual saw blade from a rod across the top of the open drum will allow you to soak more saw blades at a time without the weight when removing them. A good machine coolant concentrate in the rinse water will let you drip dry the blades without rusting.

Mr Neil Franklin, Marietta Saw
Removing residue on plastic and Corian-cutting blades. I use a very concentrated solution of NaOH (sodium hydroxide) to loosen it, and then wearing long rubber gloves, I scrub the blades with a stiff plastic bristle scrub brush. What doesn't break loose with that procedure, I'll hit with a wire wheel on a bench grinder.

Rob Rzasa, Equipment Ltd.
We have a very good machine that will clean all types of blades and tools. We offer an ultrasonic tool cleaner in two sizes, one for saws up to 16" and another unit for saws up to 26", both machines will clean in excess of 24 to 36 blades at a time in about 5 to 7 minutes.

The easiest thing to find is: Red Devil Lye. A 16oz bottle costs about $ 4.00, we used to get it at Lowes but not every store carries it. The last time we bought some, we got it at Home Depot.

David Farris
I just ordered a drum of powder from ZEP with product number 9878 and is called heavy duty vat stripper and it says that heating the mixture works best.

Stan, Aksarben Saw & Tool, Inc.
I too use a solution of sodium hydroxide, however maybe not strong enough. Then we wash with soap and water, clean the edges, and polish the plate.

R.S. Ponton, ICE
Cut a 52gal steel drum around its "belly" forming 2 half tanks. One is used as a cold water rinse tank and the other is used as a heated sodium hydroxide (NaOH) soak tank.

The NaOH soak tank is constructed as follows: Purchase a 220V hot water heater heating element at a hardware store. It must be the straight type, a not folded-over type. Mount
it into the side of the tank at the bottom.

Drill random holes in a length of pipe which is long and large enough to cover the exposed length of the heating element inside the tank. This pipe serves as a physical protection guard for the heating element when sawblades are immersed into the tank. Mount it inside the tank at the bottom covering the exposed heating element. Wire the 220V heating element through a standard wall mount light switch and connect to a 20Amp 110V outlet.

Fill the tank with water and add about 6lbs of NaOH. Exercise care because NaOH is a very strong organic solvent.

The heating element can be left on all day and it will not overheat. No regulating thermostat is necessary because the element is 220V but powered by 110V, it provides an ideal soak bath temperature. It is advisable to switch-off the heater at night and on weekends. The heating element typically lasts about 5-6 years before needing replacing.

After a 5 minute soak in the heated NaOH tank, gummed sawblade are quickly cleaned. The worst gummed sawblades might require a few light strokes with a plastic bristle brush.

Add water and NaOH as necessary to maintain a full tank and a saturated solution. Change the solution periodically as residue accumulates in the tank. The solution can be dumped down the drain because it is the equivalent of Drano(tm) and should contain no hazardous products.

A handy "carrier" for holding the sawblades being cleaned can be fabricated as follows: Bend a 24" length of 3/8" steel rod or "all-thread" into an "L" shape with the foot of the "L" about 4" long to serve as a handle. Weld the straight end vertically in the center of a steel plate about 1/4"T x 1-1/2"W x 6"L. This carrier provides a simple means of containing a stack of sawblades while immersing them into the soak tank, the rinse tank, etc.

Stan, Aksarben Saw

Our shop does not heat the mixture. I use heavy rubber tubs used for livestock, big enough to lay 18" blade in the bottom. (Local farm supply store) I made a rod for holding the blades out of 1/2" rod with a threaded end on one end and a small plate welded to the other end. (about 16" long) I made T handle that screws to the theaded end. As we stack the blades on the rod we space each blade with 2" washers made of plastic mud flaps (Local truckstop gives them to us free) This whole arrangment is stored in a lockable cabnet.

Ed Bissell
For information only you might want to be careful what you put down your drain. Several issues to consider;
1. What is it going to do about the working bacteria system of your septic tank.
2. Is your system large enough to handle the volume your going to put in.
3. Last but most important, anything you discharge from your shop is considered industrial waste and must be disposed of properly. Big EPA problem if not handled correctly.

TSP (Tri Sodium Phosphate)
Marty at Carbide saws, Inc. in High Point, NC sent Emily a sample of this with a great drawing just in case Emily didn’t know how to scrub saw blades. They mix 1 pound per five gallons and really like the results.

Our Tests

Dip Tanks
There are a variety of chemical preparations available. Oakite #3 is a product that was recommended to us. It is effective on oxides and scale as well as oil and grease. Oakite is in New Jersey at 908 464-6900.

Pretty well any strong caustic solution from a janitorial supply will work. The problem with caustics is the danger. Hot caustic can burn skin and eyes. Working with a dip tank can make the danger much worse.

Caustic is popular and effective so we tested Easy off oven cleaner in spray can as well as “Oven & Grill Cleaner” from our local janitorial supply house.

Citrus based
We have been hearing good things about these so we tested a couple.
Citrus – from Orange Fresh and
Orange Clean form Orange Clean

We also tested 409 as well as Simple Green and Brakleen

$ / oz.
Brake cleaner - spray can 0.33
Simple Green 0.24
Caustic - Spray cans 0.23
Orange Clean 0.15
409 0.12
Caustic - spray bottle 0.10
Citrus - spray bottle 0.09
Citrus - spray bottle 0.06

One stood out for being really horrible: Brakleen is far and away the most expensive. It is the worst cleaner, it causes cancer and it can explode.

This is a great product for getting in very tight spaces and dissolving greases and other packed crud. However this is not what we are doing with saw cleaning. We want to dissolve a thin layer of light materials on a flat surface.

We tested the sprays with a 2 second spray and 8 wipes. We tested the liquids by holding the towel over the top of the bottle and tipping it to soak a patch on the towel and then giving that 8 wipes.

The cheap oven and grill cleaner was far and away the best cleaner followed by the Easy Off then the orange cleaners (no real difference among them). The 409 and Simple Green were not as effective and Brakleen was the worst at cleaning.

Safety
Brakleen is Carcinogenic as well as having other problems. All the rest cause skin and eye irritation. It looks like the caustic might be worse than the citrus which might be worse than the 409 and Simple Green. All recommend gloves and goggles. Aprons are a good idea and some recommend them. Brakleen mentions a respirator (not just a mask) if there is a possibility that the exposure limits maybe exceeded.
Basically the stronger they clean the more likely they are to irritate skin. Skin has oil sort of like any other oil so this makes sense.

Advice:
1. For best cleaning use a strong caustic such as an oven and grill cleaner.
2. Avoid brand names. Most of the extra ingredients are to make it easier to spray. You also get butane as a propellant and spraying butane in a saw shop doesn’t sound like a good idea.
3. We know one very good shop that uses an orange cleaner and likes it because they don’t have to rinse it off. Caustic compounds can be a bit hard to rinse.
4. Buy concentrate and mix your own. You can drop your cost in half and you can get the mixture you wish.


Two Additional Cleaners

Ram Cleaner & Picoclean 123 orange
Because cleanliness is absolutely essential to successful tipping we have done a great deal of research into it. Whether you are brazing carbide or welding on Stellite® tips you need a clean surface. Any oil or grease can interfere with the join and cause tip loss.
Picoclean is a highly advanced version of the traditional caustic cleaners. Ram cleaner is heavily solvent based with some caustic cleaner.

Some customers are using straight caustic cleaners such as Lye, caustic soda or sodium Hydroxide. Others are using a solvent such as Acetone, alcohol or similar. These seem to be the two most popular approaches and either can be very effective.

No matter which way you go you will almost certainly get better results using a specially formulated cleaner.

Both these cleaners are more effective than just plain chemicals. These cleaners will clean more types of oils and dirts and clean them better. They are specially formulated to rinse cleaner. A specially formulated cleaner will also give much greater service life.

PICO 123 Orange
I had read some articles written by Picoclean personnel so I called them with the problem of cleaning saw blades. They asked us to send them some really dirty saw blades. They then developed a special formulation for saw blades, and similar tools.

This concentrate has a high pH, it is made by PICO with a reacted caustic base to inhibit its effect on base metals such as carbide. This is a heavy-duty, water-based cleaner and degreaser used to dissolve a wide variety of ink, paint and resin coatings, dirt, oil, carbon and grease from floors, equipment and other substrates. It is biodegradable and has a pleasant odor as well as being formulated with non-solvent cleaning additives, surfactants and wetting agents, which are non-flammable and non-carcinogenic. This cleaner replaces flammable, toxic, hazardous solvent based products historically used for this type of cleaning and it forms a stable, low foaming solution when diluted with tap water and is completely free rinsing. Product features and benefits: biodegradable, non-flammable, water dilutable, low volatile emissions, high detergency, petroleum solvent free

PICOCLEAN 123 ORANGE has a variety of uses so that you can use the product for maintenance as well as a production saw blade cleaner.

PICOCLEAN 123 ORANGE does have a strong pH so that precautions should be followed by all workers handling the product and involved with any cleaning processes. After cleaning blades should be rinsed, then a corrosion inhibitor applied to bare steel to prevent any rusting.

Application:
Use this cleaner concentrated or diluted up to 50 parts with hot or cold tap water to remove the ink, paint or resin coatings, dirt, oil, carbon and grease from floors and other substrates. Note: time, temperature, concentration and severity of cleaning should be considered for total effectiveness. Use it as well in steam cleaning, soak tank cleaning, manual type cleaning operations and industrial floor cleaning machines. We recommend that parts are rinsed with water after use and coated with rust inhibitor if desired.

Recommended dilutions:
Dilutions will vary depending on the application. Heated soak tanks will probably run 5-10% and spray bottle hand cleaning about 3-5%. Heavy duty cleaning for dip tanks and fast cleaning. Spray bottles and other light cleaning use it at 4% (25 parts water to 1 part concentrated cleaner.

Ram Cleaner
RAM cleaner is very versatile. It can be used as a mild spray for things such as cleaning furniture and windows, or a full strength cleaner to clean things such as concrete driveways, boats, motorcycles, pools, and lots of other things! All you have to do is adjust the strength to fit the type of cleaning job! For small jobs, all you need is a small amount of RAM on a damp cloth or sponge, and wipe. RAM can clean tough problems such as rust, road tar, degreasing car engines, glue, and soap buildup.

Ram cleaner is based on several very potent solvents with some caustic cleaner added as well. It comes highly recommended to us in spite of the cost. See cost comparisons at the end of the article.

Safety Comparisons
Both cleaners are designed with safety as major consideration. However pitch, tar, grease, oil and many other substances are chemically similar to people so cleaner that affects them will also affect people. Read and follow the MSDS and the label.

Cost Comparisons
Ram Cleaner concentrate retails at $40 a quart while the Picoclean 123 orange concentrate retails at $15/ gallon. A quart is the minimum from Ram and a gallon is the minimum from Picoclean. If you buy a 55 gallon drum of Ram cleaner the concentrate is $0.06 per ounce and $0.011 diluted for heavy use. A 55 gallon drum of Picoclean is $0.05 per ounce as a concentrate and $0.005 per once diluted for heavy cleaning. Ram Cleaner has a heavier discount schedule than Pico does.


Dilution for Heavy Cleaning
Ram recommends 5:1 and Pico recommends 10:1 This makes the Ram cleaner for heavy use $0.25 per ounce diluted ounce while the Pico cleaner is $0.012 per ounce for heavy use.

Other Options
There are a variety of chemical preparations available. Oakite #3 is a product that was recommended to us. It is effective on oxides and scale as well as oil and grease. Oakite is in New Jersey at 908 464-6900.

A clean saw plate is critical to effective brazing. There are people who report good results with just a “gum and go” method. In other words the plates are notched and used with no special cleaning. There are other people who feel that additional cleaning is needed. One of the simplest procedures is to use a room temperature dip tank.

The solution we found was a water based solution of :
Master BXX
(Sodium Hydroxide)
Distributed by Pacific Chemical


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

 

[waynewa]

Understood and much appreciated Tom, you were clear it was my follow up that lacked clarity. I'm going to do some tests on a few old blades over very long periods (say up to 1 month at a time) of continuous electrolysis just to see what the effect is on the blade and teeth and whether the teeth are still firmly affixed to the blade. In reality I'd only need approx 10 minutes to dislodge all the foreign matter but a month of continuous electrolysis will serve to emphasize and make visible any effect the process will have on the blade.

Q. Would it be correct that a miniscule amount of metal would transfer from the anode to the cathode (saw blade) during the process?

Thanks,
Wayne

ps. thanks for that list of cleaners.

 

[tomwalz]

You would probably get some metal transfer. However the magnitude of the affect would probably fall under the haircut rule. “You can lose weight by getting your hair cut but the amount is probably not going to be very significant.”

Could you do a report for our newsletter? If you don’t get it then email us and we’ll be happy to send it. We have some samples at

http://www.cs4u.org/newsletters.htm

Most of what I sent you comes from folks like yourself. I try to make the newsletter an information exchange within the saw and tool industry.


Tom

P. S. thanks for the stars.


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

 

[waynewa]

Tom> "Could you do a report for our newsletter? If you don’t get it then email us and we’ll be happy to send it. We have some samples at

http://www.cs4u.org/newsletters.htm"

One way or the other I'll let you know the results together with any further information I may happen to come across. This is a work in progress, it may take up to 6 months to get all the information I'm looking for.

Have you encountered the term Hydrogen Embrittlement as it relates to water electrolysis and hardened steel blades? If so do you envisage any problems with HE if the blades are cleaned for 20 minutes each month?

Thanks,
Wayne

 

[tomwalz]

Don't know. I'm pretty much a brazed hardmetal guy. We electroplate. Electro-etch carbide, cermets and ceramics so we can braze them. The cleaning came up because it is of interest to my customers.

There are some really, really good steel guys here.

Tom


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

 

[unclesyd]

It is best to use a formulated caustic cleaner as they contain wetting and rinse agents which in most cases will eliminate hand scrubbing.
It is possible to greatly enhance the cleaning ability of most proprietary caustic cleaners bu the addition of small amounts of different solvents, like mineral spirits, Stoddard solvent, and my favorite insecticide base. The only limitation is that the solvent should have a flash point above 140F.

tomwalz, et al

Oakite used to make a cleaner specifically for rosins and pitch. I don't have a list now but I think the number was 83 or 85. It worked extremely well on pine rosin.