Month: January 2023

January 17, 2023 – Dealing With Pantry Bloat

January 17, 2023 /

If it were left strictly up to me, I would keep a tight control on what goes in to the pantry. Right or wrong, I feel an obligation to ‘get rid of things’. It ends up being an alphabet soup if you will of things that you thought you would make or partials or whatever.

Here is the technique that I use. I pick an ingredient and then I build a meal around it. That’s it. You keep doing that until you eliminate oddball stuff or get the volume of items cleared out. Of course, you could always use the canned food drive as well.

I strongly recommend that you “buy what you eat”. Looking at my picture you can see that there are a couple cans of soup. I purchased those because my wife was sick and she wanted pho. It was already 5pm and I was 30 mins from home. I made the decision to buy chicken noodle soup instead of adding another hour of going to a restaurant and ordering take out. She told me that she hates chicken noodle soup. You would think after 30 years, that might be something I knew, but that was news to me. So, I bought something that we don’t eat.

You can also see that we have a can of Jack fruit. That particular item, my son bought from the Asian grocery store. We have a vegetarian, Mexican cookbook that uses jack fruit in place of meat. This particular ingredient I do plan on using, I have just been lazy about doing it.

The dry side of the pantry is more difficult to one and done. For this reason, I suggest that you either substitute whenever possible or buy the smallest quantity available. If you find that you are really gaga over the results, then invest in the real thing because going the other way around leaves you with a 7/8″ container of an ethnic spice or mix that you have to make copious quantities (or throw it out).

I have loads of hot sauces, rubs, seasoning mixes etc. I personally have an aversion to some of these things because I don’t trust the composition. My preference is to make my own blends from basic spices that is sized for what I am doing. I guess that it doesn’t hurt to have these things around, I just don’t like the clutter. We will be thankful in the zombie apocalypse.

Another trick I have used successfully is the bulk section. Bulk doesn’t necessarily mean large quantity, it means quantity of your choosing without packaging. So when you have 3 leftover lasagna noodles because the pack has 12, you can buy 6 noodles from the bulk section to get rid on the three you do have. It is also good for recipe sized purchases. And added advantage is that it is cheap.

I have a similar relationship with the refrigerator as the pantry. And the strategy is the same, pick an ingredient and build a meal around it. Things like jellies can be incorporated in sauces or compotes for example. Keep going and stop buying things that you only use once and pretty soon, things will be cleaned up.

End Your Programming Routine: This is a balance. I would never tell my family that they couldn’t purchase something. But, I don’t appreciate the burden of having leftover ingredients around. I guess if no one can stand it, you can always pitch it but I hate the waste too. I would much rather find a way to use it up than throw it away. Above all, if you focus on eliminating the problem, then chances are pretty good that you will succeed.

January 16, 2023 – A is A

January 16, 2023 /

Reading Atlas Shrugged gave me a fundamental paradigm shift. Not only did it inspire me to look into philosophy as a discipline but change my appreciation for it in general. I guess it never occurred to me that fundamental understanding of the same definition is critical to proper logical analysis. It sounds so simple but I guess that I have never done it before.

End Your Programming Routine: I think this is where we start the end your programming routine. We need to understand the fundamental questions in life to be able to successfully manage and thrive. I am definitely thinking of doing more in this line, including study of philosophy. I enjoyed it, I hope you do too.

January 13, 2023 – Atlas Shrugged 3:8

January 13, 2023 /

We are getting close now, I can almost taste it. After this chapter, there are approximately 40 pages and two chapters remaining. I have to say, I didn’t anticipate completely what happens in this chapter and I am still noodling how this is going to end. So let’s get into it.

This is the chapter that follows the 60 page statement by John Galt. Immediately, the government representatives that were hijacked are stunned. The entire country is in a tailspin, of course and government continues to put up a false front. This is where the plan to coopt John Galt starts to happen.

Dabny looks up Galt’s address despite being warned not to. Her finding him draws the government to him as well. They capture John Galt and he is then held in an attempt to give the appearance that he has joined sides with the status quo.

The entire book has been this chess match of proxy conflicts between the group saying they represent ‘the people’ and the group of people that say that they represent ‘the individual’. In this chapter, we have direct interaction between the two groups. Surprisingly, Galt gets captured and is held prisoner in the attempt to win him over to the side of the people.

I suppose, this is where the rubber meets the road in this chapter. It is sometimes a good strategy to emulate what is successful for your own purposes. For instance, I have heard the advice that if something is working in a particular genre, then that means that there is a market and the possibility for it to work for you. In more plain language, I will use an example.

In today’s day and age, there is a kind of career as what is called ‘an influencer’. The nearest way I can figure is that people get money for being a celebrity of sorts. It is enough money to be a full time job and sometimes significant amount of money. So, because that is a career, that means that there is room for others to do the same thing even in the same space. The same can be said for contractors or widget makers too.

What isn’t said or known is the formula on how to make it actually work. Certainly, there are attributes like appearance, use of popular platforms, consistency of interaction but there are also intangibles; one of them that I would call luck. My point with all of that is that emulating success is a way to obtain it. I think we have quite the opposite in Atlas Shrugged.

One of the characteristics of obtaining success is authenticity. Politicians are in a way influencers as well. Recently, a former pope just died. During his time at the head of the Catholic church, he was seen as a traditionalist or conservative. This direction of the church was really seen as a shift from the populist direction of his predecessor.

I am not a Catholic, but a Christian so I am adjacent. There is no doubt that the Pope is an important figure to people in that religion. My sense is that even though there was strife over policy, there was no doubt that he was a man of faith and genuine in his beliefs. What I am trying to say is that whether we agree with the direction I don’t think that we can disagree on the intent.

That is the thing that any organization which tries to coopt a movement or attach itself to a rising star could possibly make it work. Of course Atlas Shrugged was not going to work because the government really didn’t believe in the same things as John Galt. They wanted to use his popularity and be seen as associated with him rather than embrace his beliefs. The reason that I say this is because they truly don’t need Galt to fix the problem, they need to change their beliefs and therefore the policies.

I sometimes think that a parliamentary style government would be better than our government. But, then I think that Parliaments are so much more subject to opinion with the ‘no confidence’ card that can be played that I am left with no good government options. You might think that makes a government more responsive to the people but my observation is that it is an entity that is more manic.

End Your Programming Routine: Just like Lord of the Rings and a score of other fiction works, you cannot control the power if you are not worthy. Simply attaching your name to a rising star doesn’t work without being genuine with your convictions. Even at the point of a gun, John Galt refused to cooperate. Because after all, are you going to murder someone on a national broadcast? Before completely chancing it, know your environment and risks. If you stand for your convictions, you can’t be swayed, even by force.

January 12, 2023 – The Red/Green Show

January 12, 2023 /

Back when I had first got out of college and began my career, of course all of my co-workers were older than me. I remember one of them that could have been my dad was so ecstatic about this Red Green Show. He went on and on about how funny it was and that I should watch it. For us, it aired on PBS on Friday nights so I tried to watch it once and I didn’t get it.

Red Green was the main character’s name. I feel like Red Green was also a dichotomy; kind of two states that cannot exist simultaneously. You can’t be a handyman and use duct tape to fix everything for instance like in the TV show. This leads to today’s topic of red and green lasers.

I have had a red laser for 5-7 years. The laser is put into the bore of the barrel and used to project a dot that you would then try to manipulate your scope so that the first shot is on paper. This is the process of bore sighting a scope. After numerous uses at the range I decided that red is not adequate for range work.

The picture on the left is in near darkness. The camera flash made it seem lighter than it really was. My point is that in the dark, the red laser is readily visible up to 25 yards or so. I have used it in the basement to get a preliminary bore sight. But, I really only have 10 yards of distance in my basement. At the rifle range the closest target stand is 50 yards. Sometimes even that initial bore sight is not adequate enough.

This is when I decided that I would try green. I haven’t actually used it at the range yet but the picture on the right is outside in the daylight. I had to get close enough so that the camera could actually pic up the dots (about five yards) but I could see it at 15 yards easily. By the time I could see the green dot in the camera, I could also see the red light with my eyes.

Light in the green spectrum is easier for the human eye to see than red in daylight. A couple things to be aware of. Green light requires more power to generate. So, you will see with pricing that they are also more expensive. I have heard that you get a couple of hours of laser usage with green but double or more with red. So, a long day at the range you may run through a battery or more.

In my day (before cheap lasers) if you had one it was red. That means that red lasers are ubiquitous in laser sights and bore sights. But, now there are often choices between red and green. Pick green if money is no option. But, don’t feel bad about red. My view is that lasers are low-light tools when it comes to aiming. I suppose that my vision and skill is fine enough that in daylight I am going to use the sights and not rely on the laser for aiming.

As I said above, I have yet to use this green laser on any sight in activity. So, what I am talking about comes from colloquial wisdom and not experience. What I can say is that I can’t see the red laser at 50 yards, so there was a lot of guessing when I was working on sighting in last year.

End Your Programming Routine: This is one of those topics that I had on my list for Tacticool Thursday last year. This is an example of some of the stuff I am occasionally going to talk about still. I am going to reduce the frequency of this kind of content and I am surly going to avoid outing anything specific that could be construed as illegal in today’s political content.

January 11, 2023 – Think Outside the Burrito

January 11, 2023 /

The breakfast burrito is the the perfect palate for leftovers. I often find that I can creatively use things that I wouldn’t normally do because it is fun. Frequently it is the case that when we have significant quantity of leftovers that I am looking for ways to re-imagine them. But breakfast is a place to use that tiny bit.

I will give some examples. My wife is a big fan of what we call church tacos. When we talk Taco Tuesday, this is what we are talking about. They are what you might recognize as the classic, Taco Bell style ground beef taco. I am abhorred by the fast food version but we use our own beef and corn tortilla, lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream and salsa. The reason we call them church tacos is because the local catholic church sells tacos like this out of their food cart at celebrations.

This is a lot of background to explain that we usually have two or three tacos worth of meat leftover. It is not enough to do much with but I like to mix with scrambled eggs to put in my breakfast burrito. Another thing that I like to do is make a hash with that leftover end of roast beef and potatoes, onions and peppers. It is not just meat, but those small quantities of green (red/yellow/orange) peppers as well. If you have leftover fajita fixings scramble well with eggs as well.

During New Year’s Eve, we mad a ton of snacks for a very few people. One of the things that was brought over was a pile of jalapeno poppers. So, when you have 20 of them for four people along with a charcuterie and dip and other things, you end up with a lot leftovers. What to do with them? Put them in breakfast burritos.

I simply cut a whole one in half lengthwise and added it to my eggs and potatoes and instant breakfast burrito. I find that this is a good place to add the one leftover hotdog or sausage. I have also used those take-home box French fries as well. We also often have a small amount of beans as well. I love beans in my breakfast, burritos included.

One more tip. After the burrito is wrapped, I think that it benefits from putting on the griddle whole. This gives a chance for the cheese to melt and it also reduces some of the excessive moisture that the tortilla contains and also tends to keep the whole thing together while you are eating it.

I have not taken the time to master the flour tortilla. This is something that I probably won’t ever do because we just don’t eat many of them. And when you want to make a breakfast burrito, it is not something that you want to add another couple of hours making tortillas. However, I will say that the homemade tortillas doubles the quality result.

There are some different strategies that I use with leftover corn tortillas and salsa, but that is a topic for a different day. If you don’t like tortillas then all of these things can be made without the tortilla and then I call them a scramble. Sometimes I do it that way, particularly when the vegetable quantities are higher that I want to use or when I replace white potatoes with sweet potatoes.

End Your Programming Routine: What I am trying to get across today is that you can have small amounts of things that you can mix together and get some magical results. This not only keeps you inventory tidy but keeps things that would normally be passed over because there is just not enough to do anything with from hanging around until they get pitched. I have my preferential palate, but I am sure that there are other combinations of things that would be just as good, I just haven’t tried them yet.

January 10, 2023 – Fly Tied, #1

January 10, 2023 /

As with my philosophy, first build discipline and then proficiency. Well you could say that this is what I did. I wanted to tie a fly that used all of the materials I had on hand (I did have to buy hooks however). I saw no reason to buy more materials when I had plenty on hand. I also wanted to make something that was large. It is easier to do dexterity work when you are not at micro-scale.

I have alluded to this before but it used to be that fly fishing and fly tying was a very traditional endeavor. I have some pattern books, but I just wanted to make something. And what is more flashy then a streamer? These are the peacocks of the fly world. So, I found a picture of something that I liked the looks of and made up the rest.

Step one is to wrap the hook in thread as a base layer. Then I put down a layer of gold tinsel. My intent is to have a butt end with some exposed gold.

With my base layer down, I added black chenille. That simulates the body of an insect. I probably made a mistake using marabou (feather) as hackle, that simulates wings. Marabou is typically used as dubbing (or adding mass to a body, not as hackle. But remember, I was using what I had on hand.

After building up the head and adding head cement to hold it all together. I had tied my first fly in thirty years. Now, it wasn’t super tidy or good looking. I was thinking of naming it something in-appropriate, but didn’t. Maybe you can suggest something funny or unique? I have no illusions that this is the one to knock them dead. But this is the one that got me back into the game.

I learned a few things in this trial process. The first thing I learned was that my vice sucks. It essentially free spins with almost no pressure. I sure don’t remember that from the past. It is going to be a while before I actually do anything about replacing the vice. For one, I can’t justify doing something for a ‘someday I might want a better one’. Second, I have other projects/expenses lined up before this becomes a priority.

The second thing that I learned was that I have enough tools to make simple flies. I do plan to purchase more thread bobbins and hackle pliers to have some spares on hand and thinking that I might make more complicated flies eventually. But for now, what I have will work for what I am doing. I will never give up on two is one and one is none in case something gets lost or broken but this should be fine for what I am doing now.

I don’t think the hook I used was proper. The pattern I emulated called for a #3 to #5 hook. This is actually a #2 but it seems short to me. This hook was billed as a bait hook but I think the shank is too short. There are specific or common fly hooks and this was not one of them. So, I think my output would be neater an cleaner if I actually used a better hook. But again, this got me going and I could buy it locally.

End Your Programming Routine: I really wanted to prove to myself that I could still do it. I think that I have lost some skill and technique as well as knowledge after all these years but proof of concept is complete. I am trying to figure out exactly how I want to handle all of this but this is a good start. I am really trying to keep my toolbox fallacy at bay and this is the way that I started.

January 9, 2023 – How to Play Cribbage

January 9, 2023 /

I have tried to change it up from the serious and heavy to the light and fun. So, when thinking about getting ready for New Year’s Eve, I was thinking about how we used to play Cribbage as a family on that particular day. I thought that I might be able to attempt to describe how to play on a podcast. You be the judge.

End Your Programming Routine: Being that this is kind of a game of passing time, you think about what is the value of a game like this. At fishing/hunting camp it is filling out the evening so that you can get to the purpose tomorrow. Or for sailors, it is the same kind of thing. It is a game worth having around in my opinion, whether you are waiting for the ball to drop or holed up in your bunker.

January 6, 2023 – Atlas Shrugged 3:7

January 6, 2023 /

Well, well, well… we meet again. I have to say that this is one of those chapters that goes completely off of the rails. It is completely and unnecessarily too long. It is an over sixty page soliloquy by John Galt and his reasons for doing what he has done. I actually think that this is probably Rand speaking. I think that the this probably could have been done very effectively in 10 pages. It took me probably six hours to read this and even then I don’t think I got most of it.

After the last chapter, he finally did it. Reardon finally through in the towel. As a result Mr. Thompson was going to give a national address. In case you don’t recognize the name, Mr. Thompson is the President at the time. Not so fast, John Galt hijacks the broadcast and here is the longest statement in written history.

There is a lot of good stuff here that just makes sense, but really there are two things that I want to talk about. The first one is the name of the section ‘A is A’. On the surface, you might think that this is kind of gibberish. But, it makes perfect sense because it is exactly as it sounds and it is exactly what is happening today.

What John Galt is saying is a functioning and proper society must be accept the reality that one thing cannot be another. Or said another way, A cannot be B otherwise it would actually be B and not A. As one example let us talk about gender. It is pervasive throughout the school system and soon throughout society that there are more than two genders. In fact, at our local high school we had a homecoming king, queen and a non-binary (something or other).

There are kids that are X, there are kids that allegedly identify as they/them or literally plural. This stuff doesn’t even make sense. This creates all kinds of issues related to sports competition and even locker room assignment. I have even been seeing stories about how people went through gender re-assignment and now are trying to transition back to their original gender. These are kids that don’t even know what they are going to do after high school thinking that they are born in some deficient manner with respect to their gender. I would argue that they don’t even know what being either a man or a woman is supposed to be.

Like any good Libertarian, I could care less if someone wants to identify are a cat, but A is A. It is dangerous to deny biology and reality because we are convincing ourselves that it doesn’t exist or we can wish reality is not really true if we tell ourselves that it isn’t. We should probably do away with all the homecoming nonsense anyway, I don’t see much value.

The second thing that I want to talk about is to quote John Galt directly. “The evil of the world is made possible by the sanction that you give it. Withdraw you sanction. Withdraw your support. Do not try to win on your enemies terms or win at a game that they are setting the rules. Do not seek the favor of those that enslave you, do not beg for alms from those that robbed you be it subsidies, loans or jobs do not join their team to recoup what they have taken by helping them rob your neighbors.”

It goes on but it makes the point so elegantly. This is what I have been saying about politics all along. No matter the side, either side is taking from someone to further their own agenda and personal riches of the people that are connected within. We need to stop thinking that we can vote ourselves out of the problems we have. To be frank, our problems are the result of us voting in the first place. Picking a side endorses the system into existence.

I do this as a hobby and because I am trying to change people’s programming. The fact of the matter is that I am not surprised that a single contested race did not end the way that I wanted. I didn’t vote for third party candidates or just ‘throw in a protest vote’. I voted for what I thought was the lessor of the two evils. But I also did it to make a point that my local society is 180 degrees of my own personal beliefs.

I have talked about scientific laws and theories before. A theory is something that cannot be either completely proven or disproven but a law is something that cannot be disproven. The theory of relativity is a theory because we can’t actually test it. We cannot travel at the speed of light to find out that we have aged relative to the speed that we have travelled while others have aged relative to the distance that we travelled in that time. If we start to tell ourselves that Newton’s first law is Force = sunshine/rainbows instead of mass * acceleration then we haven’t accomplished anything other than making ourselves collectively dumber. For those that don’t know E = mc^2 is the exact equation as F = m*a, more on that some other day.

End Your Programming Routine: It doesn’t surprise me that my philosophy falls on deaf ears. In the book, John Galt is willing to wait for the collapse of society because it is the only tool he has remaining. It seems like the course of the book lasts five years or so and accelerates quickly. We are watching and even enabling our own collapse as we live and breathe, it is just happening so much slower that we are not even seeing it. Like John and his peers, there might come a day where I realize that my efforts to change programming are beyond my reach or ability. And like Dabny at this point, I am not willing to give up.

January 5, 2023 – Happy New Years… You Deserve What You Get

January 5, 2023 /

These 20 new Oregon laws are going into effect in 2023 (msn.com)

I don’t know why I get suckered into paying attention to this stuff. It doesn’t change the water temperature in my pool. On the other hand, it is really revealing and annoying the things that our government finds important and spends our money on. Here is a summary of the nonsense.

LawGrade (-/0/+)Analysis
Newborn Home Visits to be Reimbursed–Forces insurers to include up to three home visits in plans. Read: Spend more of other’s money
Lower the cost of one day fishing license0I am all for making fishing more accessible but that money goes for conservation.
Restitution payments to victims first +Victims are paid before court costs. Sounds like the intent of restitution
Department of Education composition matches state demographics–Like all affirmative action, I am not in favor quotas. Let’s focus on feeling better rather than results.
Workers compensation cannot be suspended without prior notification0Seems fair. I am sure most of this was used on people that probably milked the system
School board members must provide any conflict of interest, source of income, etc.–I am all for transparency, when equally applied. Why are we picking on one group specifically? What about all politicians?
Red light tickets can be issued by a clerk, not just an officer–I don’t believe in cameras. I don’t believe in lowering standards.
Department of Education will use standardized testing to develop future plans and measure effectiveness–So, they weren’t doing this already? And what have they been doing?
Dental coverage offed to members of COFA and do not qualify for the Oregon Health plan–These are non-US citizens that are earning less than 138% of the US poverty rate. What the…?
Evidence collected in a sexual assault investigation must contain a medical examination form0So, we were collecting samples without any associated information? Seems like we shouldn’t but a law was necessary?
The word Alien is now replaced with non-citizen0I guess this is so we can tell the difference of intent between space aliens and non-citizens if future law.
New position of Child Support Referee created. Can have adjudication powers0I don’t know enough about this or the system to know if this is good or bad. Presumably this adjust the judicial system burden.
Unlicensed real estate agent fines increase–I am not in favor of enforcing cartels. From my experience real estate agents don’t deserve what they get and there is no legal requirement to use one.
Voter registration can use Social Security Cards to verify identity–What a great idea. Let’s add more uncertainty into the process. Do you know how many people I know that have had their identity stolen?
Defines benefit year as Jan 1 with 52 contiguous weeks0Fine. We need to have common definitions for all of our entitlements.
Employers will require five days notice to force employees to work overtime–It is a wonder that there are any employers in this state.
Expands the list of occupational diseases for firefighters+This includes volunteer firefighters. I think first responders deserve some respect. It would be better to not have a list at all.
Restricts the amount of regulation local government can place on alarm systems and electric fences+Finally, something that actually restricts government.
Expands workers comp beneficiary list0In these days of gender/identity crisis, why not. My man servant deserves to be taken care of if I depart this earth. If we are going to sanctify this nonsense, we need to support it.

Generally speaking, there is really nothing that is actually important here. I suppose legal clarity reduces loopholes and things but it is really amazing how many people really don’t understand the phrase ‘shall not be infringed’. For some reason, they interpret that to mean shall not be infringed in gerrymandered set of parameters like except if it is fully automatic or has a magazine that can hold more than 10 rounds or it is black or whatever.

My point is we can say something is that we can make a law that the sky is blue but then we will still have people that want to argue all of the fringe elements. Like, well it is actually black at night or gray when it rains or red at sunset. It is a never ending series of definition/loophole/denial or whatever process happens. So, while I ranked all clarification laws as neutral, they really should get a futile ranking.

There is something about incompetent’s ‘fixing their mistakes’. Have you ever observed this in real time? I have. The first thing is that they don’t actually understand the problem(s). But, like the Dutch Boy plugging the leaks, once they stick their finger in the hole, the other hand is high fiving anyone who walks by. The people walking by have spent the last hour staring at their phone and only look up to see our hero has plugged the leak while there are twenty five leaks behind them and a hundred ahead. After the high five, they go back to their phones and walk right through the mess.

End Your Programming Routine: I have to apologize. I think I got triggered when I read the list of laws that were going into effect. I shouldn’t be surprised or upset that idiots do idiotic things, it is their nature. I should have never looked at the list, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to know what new fun I was in store for. And now you do too.

January 4, 2023 – Take Your Saw Blades To the Dentist

January 4, 2023 /

You know, I suppose that I am lucky. I go to the dentist twice a year. One time I was talking to my dentist and he said that some people have teeth so bad that they have to come in once a month for cleaning. Whatever the chemistry or the diet or the personal habits are, there is enough build-up necessary to have a cleaning session.

A lot of times, your saw blades have the same problem. The quality of the cut is not necessarily the sharpness of the blade, but the build-up of the sap/pitch/crud on the teeth. Not only does that build-up effect the quality of the cut but it also effects the quality of the blade. Meaning, the harder the metal has to work the more heat build-up there is and the more likely dullness and or damage will occur.

Just like the dentist, I brush my teeth, then I scrape them using something like an X-acto knife and then I brush them again. My picture above is after brushing them once. First, I spray on some simple green. I have the blade in a very cheap automotive fluids pan to contain everything and let them soak for 15 minutes. Then I use a bronze bristle brush like you would find in the gun cleaning section of the store.

When to to this is usually visually apparent. You can see the build-up on the saw blade. Now, I am as lazy as anyone else. I don’t like doing this and it takes away from my productive shop time. So, I make the decision on a task by task basis. If I am cutting construction lumber, then I don’t really care so much about cut quality, but on my woodworking projects, I do care about the finish cuts.

All that being said, I would also be more diligent depending on the quality of the blade. The one pictured is a $40 blade today ($30 at the time I bought it). I suppose that this is nothing to sneeze at but there are much more expensive blades. It is a decent quality blade and cut, but in the end these are consumables.

And with all of that, I am not manic about it. I spend thirty minutes doing the major cleaning and maintenance and then I move on. It doesn’t look like it came out of the box but it works much better than before I cleaned it.

Before I scare anyone off, the frequency of cleaning has a lot to do with what you are cutting. I tend to cut mostly fir, hemlock, cedar and spruce. These are high resin woods where the buildup happens immediately. Working with the American hardwoods like oak, maple, walnut and others the pitch buildup will be significantly less. My air dried fir has hidden pitch pockets that are still liquid so it doesn’t take long to coat everything in pitch (including my fingers).

Up until this point I have been referring to circular saw blades. Band saw blades are effected even more from buildup. When I am re-sawing boards, it is nearly impossible to get a straight cut when the blade is not clean. I do the same process, I just leave the blade on the saw when I do it.

There is probably a lot more to say on the topic of saw blades in general but I wanted to focus on cleaning them today. There are specific products for this job on the market, but Simple Green (or generic substitute) works just fine for me. That being said, I have never tried them so they may work better than what I am doing. There are other products that are meant prevent the problem in the first place. Think of it like Pam for your tools. I worry about that stuff effecting the finish that I eventually put on the wood.

End Your Programming Routine: If you are struggling with quality cuts, take a look at your blade. You might be amazed at what a difference a cleaning will make on the final outcome. You also might need a more appropriate blade for your task, so try cleaning first, then replace if results are not desirable.