Anyone using any kind of power saw when they butcher? Advice, tips, ingenious ideas appreciated.
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Anyone using any kind of power saw when they butcher? Advice, tips, ingenious ideas appreciated.
Look at commercial butcher shops (even in the grocery store) they use band saws for their butchering. If you do this get a good pair of meat cutters gloves so you don't butcher your fingers, thumbs, hands. You could probably do this with any bandsaw but you'd want to put on an oversized table to make it easier to handle large pieces.
Years ago I lived next to a farm owned by several brothers that were all legally blind. They would drag a pig into the house and butcher it with a Skilsaw. Rescue squad calls to their house were "interesting""
How do you clean the saws all or skill saw so you don't give yourself food poison at the next butchering?
There is a reason butcher knives are fixed blade, no hinge to carry contamination.
The band saws at the butcher shop are pressure washed or steamed and a lot of the parts are stainless steel.
A lot of the local guys rely on on a reciprocating saw (aka sawsall)
Now the cordless seem to be in favor.
I use a DeWalt sawsall (corded which for me works better for serious demolition instead of recharging batteries) for butchering. The short demolition blade works best for quartering, cutting through bones, etc.
Also wear Nitrile gloves for the entire process - and toss everything used in the process in a grocery plastic bag (except the saw and blade) and put it outside in the trash container.
For cleaning, I remove the blade and drop it in a shallow container (made from disposable aluminum foil) of bleach and use a green scrubbie that I've cut into about 1/8th the normal size. Whether there's schmutz on the front of the saw or not, I spray bleach on the nose of the (unplugged) saw, spread it around, let it sit for a few minutes, then wipe down with a paper towel. Then repeat 2 more times. The last iteration includes spraying a heavy dose of bleach on a clean paper towel and wiping down the rest of the saw. Just let it air-dry.
Sometimes I also use a Q-tip dipped in bleach to get to the crevices.
And of course, clean the sink, faucet, cutting board, etc. with a heavy dose of bleach too. The counters also get cleaned with bleach, but I always lay down about half-a-dozen newspapers (so they're really thick), and throw them out a few sheets at a time as they absorb any fluid. While I don't think anything got through to the counter, I still use bleach as a precaution.
As all of you know, butchering is much easier to do if you can hang the carcass somewhere to let it dry out a day or two - and hopefully freeze to some extent (the more the better) if the weather is accommodating. :o
I use a cordless sawzall, I sanded all the paint off of the 8" small toothed metal blade (made less bone chips), and ran the depth guide all the way out to keep meat out of the blade mounting mechanism. We can quarter an animal pretty quick. I use the sawzall to cut the ribs into strips and on the bigger bones in the hip joints
When I am done I scrub all metal parts on the saw with weak bleach solution and a tooth brush to make sure there is nothing stuck in there to rot.
There is absolutely NO reason to leave bones in your butchered deer meat!
I use a sawzall sometimes. I don't think the blade type matters much. I never remove the paint from the blade, I just clean it before using it. If you are really worried about clean up just toss the blade. They are pretty cheap. I just clean it with bleach. The only thing that sucks about a sawzall is if the deer moves with the saw it doesn't cut.