How To Clean Your Saw Blades

If your table saw, miter saw, or circular saw isn't cutting well, the solution may be as simple as cleaning the blade. Cleaning your saw blade is an easy way to improve your saw's cutting performance.

Skill Builder Video

Video: How To Clean Your Saw Blades - Video Transcript

Speaker: If your blade isn't cutting well, try cleaning it. When we cut wood, the blade develops enough heat to melt pitch deposits in the wood and those get baked onto the blade over time. Let me show you the brown, burnt on the evidence here on this blade. These baked on deposits won't come off the teeth on their own, they just keep building up, making the blade run hotter and that can shorten its life.

This crusty stuff, dulls their cutting action creating tear out in wood. Just like a dull scissors tears paper. Buy some blade cleaner and give your miter blade a good scrubbing when it starts to look dirty. A citrus based blade cleaner like this (Rockler Pitch & Resin Remover) works quickly for softening the crud so you can scrub it off. Concentrated laundry detergent also works surprisingly well for cleaning blades, but don't use oven cleaner. It's way too caustic for carbide and can actually ruin it over time.

Either way, let the blade soak for about 20 minutes and then scrub it with a brass or a plastic bristle brush then rinse it clean and dry it off thoroughly to prevent rust. Put it back on your miter saw and you can expect some real improvements in cutting performance.