Hi! I bought this wood from Rockler that has wax all over it to preserve it and I was wondering if it’s ok to cut it on the bandsaws?
I don’t know of any restriction on cutting finished wood on the bandsaw, but @got_tools can confirm.
If you don’t care about the wax, you could always remove it with the belt sander to get just the wood underneath.
Why would you want to gum up the belt sander like that?
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Someone ran wax coated bowl blanks across the jointer, planer and the saw stop a few weeks ago. Wax got on the jointer bed, the planer bed (quite a lot on the infeed table), the planer rollers (they were covered in wax) and the sawstop table top. I noticed wax got on my wood after running it through the planer (and i DID NOT want wax on the wood). Took Patrick and I, 30 minutes to remove the wax from the machines impacted. Not difficult to do using acetone, but it took an hour of volunteer time that could have been used more productively. Getting it off the rollers was the most difficult part.
There is no rule against cutting wax coated wood in the woodshop, but there are rules:
● Always ensure that the work area around you and your tools is clean before and after you are done working.
For the planer and jointer:
When you are done using the machine, turn off the machine, sign out (aka “FOB out”) of the machine and clean up any dust and debris in the area.
If you do cut wax coated wood - please clean off any wax that gets on the machines.
I will be proposing a rule at the next woodshop committee meeting: “All wax on wax coated wood must be removed before using any Woodshop power tools”.
The committee can accept, reject or modify the rule at their discretion.
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Thank you! I’ll remove the wax with my personal hand tools before it gets to any DMS machines
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No restriction on wax preserved wood, just remove as much of the wax as you can… and clean the wax off the machine when finished.
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