What I (re)learned this week...

[bobfog]

Thought a thread about those obvious things that for some reason you never learned or were never taught would be a good idea. Or things you just plain forgotten or got lazy about and when discovered/rediscovered made you think, well shoot why didn't I know about/do that sooner?

For me it was cleaning my tracksaw blade. I was cutting some oak and getting burning on the edge and looked at the blade and thought I should replace it, but didn't have time to make the 70 mile round trip to the nearest stockist from where I was working. So instead I cleaned it off with some white spirit, wirewool and a brass brush. Low and behold 15 mins later beneath the pitch, glue and general gunk was s blade that was practically as sharp as the day I took it out of the packet!

Kind of an obvious one, but in my old age of getting lazy and time being money I'd taken to just buying new ones.

 

[Jesse Cloud]

Don't feel bad, the sharpening service I use told me once that about half the stuff they get just needs cleaning, but since the customer ordered it sharpened....

 

[Kev]

How well do the ultrasonic cleaners work for saw blades, router bits, etc?

 

[rst]

I cut a lot of plastics and get build up on the sides.  I use fine conditioning belts on a Milwaukee bandfile to clean my blade bodies and small conditioning discs chucked in a drill on low speed to clean the gullets.  I'm careful to make the rotations away from the cutting edges and teeth.  I've cut plastics, aluminum, and wood with my blades for years and have yet needed to get a blade sharpened.  I run aluminum/plastic blades in all my saws.