Conifer jammed circular saw blade

[Ashes_Firewood]

My mate had a load of hedge taken down in his garden, some kind of conifer. He gave me the wood as he doesn't have a woodburner yet.

 

It was felled in July. Very sappy. I decided to cut it the other day with my circular saw bench to get it out the way and once I got on to a bit that was about 8" diameter the saw blade got completely stuck in it. Had to stop the PTO and smash the log off it with a log pick.

 

Only thing I could think was something to do with the sap getting hot when I was cutting and it set the sap hard all of a sudden? Don't deal with much softwood and certainly not stuff that's been recently summer felled so never had this happen before. Just curious as to what the problem could have been?

[richy_B]

If its a sudden stop its got to be something in it. Wire, nail, etc.

[Ashes_Firewood]

There was nothing in the log. It just locked tight onto the blade. Had to cut all the rest slower to stop it happening again. Very strange

[Daniël Bos]

Here's a theory:
How about the blade not being as sharp as it could be. In the hardwood you normally cut, this just makes it a bit slower. But in this case it made the ends of the fibres you were cutting through fold into the kerf a bit. Eventually this amount of "ragged ends" was enough to hold the blade tight as all the stringy fibres were wanting to straighten themselves

[richardwale]

Happens a lot with softwood. It's the sap, gets stuck on the tungsten tips. Just go slower when cutting and a spray of WD40 on the blade helps. Circular saws just happen to cut certain woods cleaner than others. It does help if the wood has been down for a while though.

[Wood wasp]

As above and also make sure the wood is firmly held and can't move at all, particularly start to rotate as the blade is cutting. 

A sharp blade also helps minimise this occurring 

[Peasgood]

It was God trying to correct your mistake of cutting conifer when it is too sappy. 

I think God was made aware of the follies of this practice when Mrs God gave him an almighty bollocking for ruining all the carpets in the house with sticky shite off the logs.

[Ashes_Firewood]

Also made the mistake of forgetting my gloves so my hands got covered in black sap.

 

Am I best stacking this outside somewhere to wash all the sap out or will it be ok stacked in my log store for a couple of years? Plenty of airflow in there, it just won't get any rain on it.

[sandspider]

Better in the rain I think, I leave conifer outside for a while before splitting and storing under cover to season.

[scbk]

IMO, just throw it wherever requires the least effort or double handling, it will be grand firewood after spending a year or so in a good shed