Met a guy on a hospital job who showed me a trick with a wet saw blade

I was cutting brick in the basement of a medical building downtown and this older mason walked up and told me to soak the blade in diesel overnight. Said it stops the blade from glazing over on hard clay brick. Has anyone else tried that or am I just being paranoid about it?

3 comments

3 Comments

casey8187d agoTop Commenter

I read a similar thing on a construction forum a few months back. A guy swore by soaking blades in kerosene instead of diesel for cutting through tough firebrick. He said it keeps the blade from getting clogged up with all that fine dust and clay. I tried it with a cheap blade on some old hard pavers and it did seem to cut smoother with less heat. Just make sure you let the blade dry off a bit before you fire it up so it doesn't smoke too bad.

pat_roberts556d ago

Funny you mention that kerosene trick, Casey. I remember reading something similar but with a twist - a guy said he mixed a little bit of automatic transmission fluid into his kerosene soak and claimed it made the blade cut even smoother. I never tried it myself because I'm always scared of starting a fire or making a huge smoke cloud in my backyard. My neighbor tried it on some really old clay roof tiles and said it worked okay but the smell hung around for like two days. Honestly, I'm still on the fence about soaking at all, wire brush seems simpler to me most of the time. But if you've got a stubborn blade that keeps glazing over, might be worth a shot on a junk blade first.

mark_chen627d ago

Is this really that big of a deal or are we overthinking it? A blade glazing over just means it's time for a quick clean with a wire brush, not a whole overnight soak in fuel.