Saw Blade Tooth Wear Reduction By Electrically Insulating the Saw Blade

It has been demonstrated in past works that when machining green (wet) wood, electrochemical reactions occur between the cutting tool and the liquid component of the wood. This reaction is responsible, at least in part, for the wear on the cutting tool. It has been proven in the laboratory that by electrically insulating the cutting tool, a reduction in tool wear is realized. The purpose of this study was to take a proven laboratory technique and place it in the harsher and more complex environment of a sawmill. Carbide tipped circular edger saw blades were electrically insulated from the arbor shaft by enlarging the arbor hole of the saw blades and placing a linen phenolic resin bushing in the arbor hole. The blades were insulated from the collars by placing a linen phenolic resin spacer between the blades and the collars. The blades were placed in an over and under type edger saw with a control blade being placed in the same slot but in opposite positions as the test blade. The test blades were then treated exactly as the production blades. After the blades were removed, tooth wear was determined using a Taylor Hobson Talysurf surface measuring instrument. The results showed a trend of the insulated saw blades toward wear improvements in the range of 18 to 30 percent. Statistically conclusive results could not be obtained due to the loss of data from damaged blades for some of the test replications.

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