Miracle pitch, gum, sawdust etc... remover

[mark]

A while back I asked here what is best to use and someone mentioned easy off oven cleaner which contains Sodium Hydroxide. I went to the grocery store and bought pure sodium hydroxide (Lye) used for making homemade soap and clearing drains. Put a few table spoons in a few cups of water and immersed my blades and router bits. Almost instantly the solution turned amber due to the pitch disolving . I swirled it around for a minute or so and then rinsed everything. It completely cleaned everything off with no scrubbing and this pitch was on very hard. I then dried everything and then coated with light oil to prevent rust.

[Josh]

That will work on stainless steel, but be wary about cleaning anything made of aluminum. NaOH will eat aluminum and many other metals.

Josh

[Doug Miller]

Washing soda works just as well, but is cheaper and *much* safer to use.

[Andrew Barss]

Josh wrote: : That will work on stainless steel, but be wary about cleaning anything : made of aluminum. NaOH will eat aluminum and many other metals.

And human flesh.

-- Andy Barss

[bent]

I seems easy enough to clean for router bits regularly because they are always coming in and out , but about TS blades, do you think either the oven cleaner, pr the product you mention would be OK to apply while "chucked", and/or how.

[Josh]

No. NaOH definitely needs to be rinsed very well to remove it from the blade. It's a strong base (opposite of an acid) and over time it may wreak havoc on the blade, the table, the arbor, your skin, wires, the wood you're cutting, or anything else in the vicinity. If you couldn't rinse it off, you'd want to neutralize it with an acid, but that's not something I recommend either. Acid-Base chemical reactions have a way of blowing up in your face, literally. Plus, that would likely precipitate a sodium compound all over your blade, which would have to be rinsed off anyway.

[bent]

Do you say either oven cleaner or the base produst is good, if rinsed, on Titanium carbide router bits (gen. carbide may apply for others); and a

200-tooth steel plywood and carbide tipped combination TS blades?

[Josh]

I can honestly say I've never tried, but based on other people's recommendations of oven cleaner for this job, I'm pretty sure it must be safe on carbide. You could try it on a cheap router bit first just to make sure.

Wear gloves!

[B a r r y]

Barry

[Doug Miller]

Yes it will -- which is one reason I keep telling people to use washing soda instead. It's highly effective, and *much* safer than lye.

[Greg G]

I use Simple Green myself. It's a little slower, but works fine for my needs. It's fairly cheap. Has a pleasant scent as well, as opposed to lye and oven cleaners. Even removes sappy, burnt pine pitch from my blades fairly easily.

FWIW,

Greg G.

[bent]

I read something about heating up a frypan and baking soda. Is there a another method? I'm not concerned about time, just convenience. But I am worrired about just leaving metal soaking in anything if I'm not sure whats going on. Is there a good soda method?