You can, and the wet fibers will pack the gullets, so a coarse blade with deep gullets works far better — and the blade needs cleaning and drying afterwards, because wet sawdust rusts a steel body overnight.
Nothing breaks. The blade simply spends the cut fighting water and sap rather than fiber.
The gullets pack
Wet fibers compress into a paste rather than breaking into chips, and the paste sticks in the gullet. A blade with a high tooth count and shallow gullets fills within a few hundred millimeters and starts rubbing. Use a coarse blade with deep gullets — a rip blade on a table saw, a 3 TPI skip-tooth on a band saw.
Resin and sap build up
Green softwood in particular leaves a hard varnish on the carbide that behaves exactly like bluntness. Clean the blade after the job with a resin solvent and a brass brush, not the next time you notice a problem.
Rust
Wet sawdust left against a steel blade body overnight will rust it, and rust on a blade plate is not cosmetic — it changes how the body runs in the kerf. Wipe it dry and put a light coat of oil on the plate.
And the timber will move
A board cut green shrinks, cups and twists as it dries. Cut it generously oversize, sticker it, and machine it to size months later.
A band saw is happier
Green timber pinches, and a band saw does not care.
Last reviewed 2026-08-12