Cleaning your Plastic frames.

[Oldbeavo]

The lye will not hurt the wood, but I am still a sceptic about super cleaning frames. Scrape only and rewax.

[Robo]

I'm making the move over to plastic foundation starting this year and am wondering what the lye does to the wooden frames or do you pop the foundation out before soaking it.

Lye cleans the wood and potentially kills any disease that may be residing in the frames. It is a good method if you have the time and intent to restore them to use.   Personally I do not clean old wooded frames with lye because it is just not worth the time for me.   If they are really bad I just burn them, not worth getting a hive sick for a couple bucks,  otherwise I just ozone them and five them back.   

[CapnChkn]

I've only had one plastic frame, and the frames with plastic foundation I replace with wax.  I've been making the frame parts for years, so I may be biased.