Natural blade/hand cleaner ?

hiwa

hiwa

Joined
Jun 7, 2009
Messages
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I was wondering if any of you fellas know of a natural way to remove tree resin/gum from your blades and hands. I'm going on a minimal gear trip , and I'd like some ideas. I've tried boiling water,ashes,stuff like that,but not really good results. There are times when you want your blade/hands clean,like dealing with wounds for example.Any thoughts?

Thx.
 
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This came up in the army once. A guy got pine sap all over his hands and he couldn't was it off with anything we had. It was the first day of a week long FTX. I didn't particularly care for him so I told him that the only way to get pine resin off was to piss on his hands. I said the ammonia would dissolve it.
THIS IS NOT TRUE, there....disclaimer out of the way.
It was three trips to the "trees" before he told me it wasn't working. I never thought he would believe me and couldn't even keep a straight face when he looked so perplexed that his hands were still covered in resin, but now didn't smell as nice.

To actually address the question, I find that oiling my hands and blade before doing anything with heavily resinous wood makes the sap much easier to remove.
 
Citrus.

Squeezing a lemon in your hands will remove any tree sap or sticky substance, and you get a lemony fresh scent.
 
Some great ideas guys ! The lemon sounds like a really good one. I'll have to try the alcohol wipes too. My blades are usually oiled , but it wears off fast.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about ya hands being sap free when dealing with wounds, most tree resins are actually good to put on wounds.

If my blade is really gunked up I'll just batton it through a few sections of wood and that fetches it off !
 
That stuff will just wear off with use, and it won't hurt you anyway.

Another non issue to stop worrying about. :rolleyes:
 
The absolute best is alcohol from your stove. One of the reasons I use alcohol stoves (and there are many) is because of its multiplicity of uses one of which is it makes an awesome solvent, cleaner, and it will sterilize a knife or anything else. And it will clean up pitch/resin from tools and hands.

If you're a minimalist then you ought to seriously consider owning and carrying gear that will serve many uses/purposes and balance that against weight, size etc.
 
For pine sap I found that Comet scrubs it off very well. You know, the powdered cleaner for pots and pans? Great stuff!

ETA: Silly me, I missed the "natural" part of the question! I usually just scrub with sand or small rocks on water, but it just doesn't work as well for sap as the Comet does :P
 
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Some good things to try here. I will try as many of these as I can and see how they go.

Thanks for the great ideas guys ! :thumbup: ;)
 
Quirt said:
The absolute best is alcohol from your stove. One of the reasons I use alcohol stoves (and there are many) is because of its multiplicity of uses one of which is it makes an awesome solvent, cleaner, and it will sterilize a knife or anything else. And it will clean up pitch/resin from tools and hands.

If you're a minimalist then you ought to seriously consider owning and carrying gear that will serve many uses/purposes and balance that against weight, size etc.
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What he said but use grain alcohol. Then you can mix drinks with it also. Works really well in alcohol stoves.--KV
 
pitdog said:
I wouldn't worry too much about ya hands being sap free when dealing with wounds, most tree resins are actually good to put on wounds.

If my blade is really gunked up I'll just batton it through a few sections of wood and that fetches it off !
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+2

The sap I get on them usually comes off after batoning other wood. If that doesn't work for you, I wouldn't really worry about it. It isn't harmful to your hands or anything along those lines.
 
Sand... one benefit to living in Florida is when you got dirty in the field scrubbing yourself with sand or pea gravel from a streambed would take it right off.
 
I'll be camping near a beach next week.

I know resin,etc.isn't harmful , but some tasks require clean, non-sticky hands.
 
Have you tried a mother's spit? It'll take anything off of a child's face so resin on your knife shouldn't be a problem.

Simple Green is a citrus base cleaner that works decently for that sort of thing and beautifully for cleaning an M60 GPMG.

Goo Gone is petroleum based but it should take it off without a problem.
 
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