Cleaning pitch & Sap From Saw Chains?

[SteveSr]

Hello,

Yesterday, I went to our local charity firewood cutting group and found some nice green pecan to cut up. Boy, is that stuff hard! While I managed to get out without hitting any rocks and a still fairly sharp chain the tie straps and sides of the cutters are pretty well coated with baked on tree sap.

Do any of you have any good remedies (and or elixirs) for removing this stuff?

In the past I have degreased the chain with old pre-mix or straight gas. and then soaked in a caustic based cleaner like simple green. But in order for it to be effective I had to heat the simple green on the kitchen stove and didn't appreciate the fumes.

While this worked good it is a lot of extra work. Anyone have any simpler but effective approaches?

Thanks,
Steve

 

[John Stryker]

Although I've never cut Pecan, I've gummed up chains like that cutting dead Ash. All I did was touch up the chain with a file, and clean out the bar groove and oiler hole and then run the chain long enough to coat the chain with bar oil. Then the chain seems to clean up by itself the next time I cut wood.

 

[Ethobling]

For pine sap, I use Good Gone, or any of those thick-ish, citrus-based degreasers/degummers. The thicker, the better, so it stays suck on the chain and acts for a longer time.

Idk about green Pecan, though. I imagine it would still work.

 

[SteveSr]

For pine sap, I use Good Gone, or any of those thick-ish, citrus-based degreasers/degummers. The thicker, the better, so it stays suck on the chain and acts for a longer time.

Idk about green Pecan, though. I imagine it would still work.

So how do you use this stuff? Just paint it on and leave it? Does the crud come off the next use?

 

[Ethobling]

So how do you use this stuff? Just paint it on and leave it? Does the crud come off the next use?

It comes in a spray bottle. I spray it on my chain/cover/wherever else and use a nylon/brass brush to get it in there. Alternatively, you can buy sap removing liquid at the store. It's thinner, but you can just let the chain soak in it and reuse it over and over.

 

[SteveSr]

Although I've never cut Pecan, I've gummed up chains like that cutting dead Ash. All I did was touch up the chain with a file, and clean out the bar groove and oiler hole and then run the chain long enough to coat the chain with bar oil. Then the chain seems to clean up by itself the next time I cut wood.

I also noticed this with ash. Since the cutter was also covered with this residue I was hesitant to put a file to the cutters lest the file get contaminated (filled up) with all of the fine dust and sap.

 

[oldbuzzard]

Denatured Alcohol does a good job of cleaning sap. And BTW peanut butter for getting it out of your clothes.

 

[Woodslasher]

I'd cut some dry, clean wood and see what that does. I hardly ever clean my chains, dry pine does a marvelous job of cleaning them off.

 

[GrizG]

Hello,

Yesterday, I went to our local charity firewood cutting group and found some nice green pecan to cut up. Boy, is that stuff hard! While I managed to get out without hitting any rocks and a still fairly sharp chain the tie straps and sides of the cutters are pretty well coated with baked on tree sap.

Do any of you have any good remedies (and or elixirs) for removing this stuff?

In the past I have degreased the chain with old pre-mix or straight gas. and then soaked in a caustic based cleaner like simple green. But in order for it to be effective I had to heat the simple green on the kitchen stove and didn't appreciate the fumes.

While this worked good it is a lot of extra work. Anyone have any simpler but effective approaches?

Thanks,
Steve

A small pan of denatured alcohol and a brass brush works really well. The Simple Green will remove pretty much all the other grime from the saw, bar and chain. When I clean a chain like that I put it in a pan of bar oil and then hang it up to drip into the pan... that way I don't have a dry chain running on the saw.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

Chuck them in a bucket of diesel.
Surprisingly, Canola oil removes most pitch/sap/resin that lands on my machine- but I dont cut Pecan.

 

[The Shooters Apprentice]

I came here to say diesel but I see I was beat to it.

 

[Bob Hedgecutter]

I came here to say diesel but I see I was beat to it.

Clever people think alike.

 

[SteveSr]

Chuck them in a bucket of diesel.
Surprisingly, Canola oil removes most pitch/sap/resin that lands on my machine- but I don't cut Pecan.

That's interesting. Since gasoline didn't dissolve the sap I didn't think that petroleum products like diesel would either. However it may be related to contact time. I may try this next time. Previously I have had issues with hickory and maple sap.

 

[Evan]

I agree cut more wood to clean chain.
Touch up bar rails with flap disc on a grinder as needed. Though bar build up may wear instead of bar metal.
Kinda a wood wearing wood instead of the metal bar. Like a lube barrier.

 

[BusaDave]

I have cut some pretty big green pecans that have fallen from storms or on creeks that eroded and have never had chains get nasty like the pics above. All you have to do is to cut more like in a dead mesquite, cedar or live oak! That will get the chain cleaned pretty good if that kind of thing is important.

 

[cookies]

coat in oven cleaner until it softens then rinse and re oil
You sure it was pecan? cut a fair bit of it being in the pecan farm capitol down here and never noticed pitch from cutting it.

 

[ChasSC]

This is from a chain cleaning thread, I found this out by accident, but it worked wonders. Put the chain on some plastic and spray with this Mequiar's Rim cleaner, let it sit for 15 min. then brush with a toothbrush. Almost as soon as you spray it on, you can see it dissolving everything and turning brown. I was impressed.

https://www.arboristsite.com/threads/chain-cleaning.249747/post-7388701

 

[nixon]

Rubbing alcohol (70, or 91% ) will soften / dissolve tree sap . It’s cheap ,and relatively harmless as far as solvents go .

 

[John Stryker]

As a woodworker I used to have to clean the gum off my table saw blades after cutting a lot of ash. I tried wd40, alcohol, gas, etc., when I was told by a saw sharpener to just soak in water overnight. I found that water loosened it up as well as anything else given the overnight soak time.

 

[ChasSC]

Rubbing alcohol (70, or 91% ) will soften / dissolve tree sap . It’s cheap ,and relatively harmless as far as solvents go .

I used the hand cleaner left over from the covid crisis to take fresh sap and some hardened off a car.