Tools & Materials
Clean sawblades
Most of the wood that I cut on my tablesaw is pine, and the sawblade gums up with pitch long before it gets dull. A quick way to clean the blade is to remove it from the saw, set it in the top of a joint-compound bucket lid and pour in enough paint thinner to cover the blade. In the time that it takes to eat lunch, the thinner dissolves the pitch. After you eat, put the blade back on the saw, and run a couple of pieces of hardwood through the saw. The abrasive action of cutting the hardwood removes the softened pine pitch from the blade.
Jefferson Kolle, Ridgefield, CT
