Canola oil for bar and chain oil?

..Brian..

Does anyone use Canola (rapeseed) or other vegetable oil for their chain? I was going to pick up 4l of Alco Bar and Chain Oil in my local Topline today but they wanted almost €20 for it which I thought was a bit much. Been reading about canola oil since and seems like a legit alternative, cleaner and cheaper.

Anyonr any personal experience?

TTTT

..Brian.. wrote: »

Does anyone use Canola (rapeseed) or other vegetable oil for their chain? I was going to pick up 4l of Alco Bar and Chain Oil in my local Topline today but they wanted almost €20 for it which I thought was a bit much. Been reading about canola oil since and seems like a legit alternative, cleaner and cheaper.

Anyonr any personal experience?

I use cheap vegetable oil (rapeseed) from tescos. I don't notice any difference between it and the €20 stuff.

JonoinGurteen

Bar / Chain oil has a few functions. The most important 2 functions are lubrication and cooling. Non-amended oils allow cooling and lubrication to the top of the bar and tend to lubricate the bearings in the chain just fine. These oils tend NOT to make it around the top of the bar to cool / lubricate the bottom of the bar. Regular turning over of the bar helps get the maximum out of the reduced usage of the bar. The chain tends to wear a little faster too, but the price savings on the oil are often worth the extra costs associated with reduced bar life. You should, with reasonable care, be able to still get full chain life. I have used a variety of oils for various reasons in various applications.

..Brian..

Thanks for the replies guys. I checked Topline again today and it's €17 for 4 litres of bar and chain oil. So I picked up 4 litres of rapeseed oil in Dunnes for €6, nearly 3 times cheaper!

timfromtang

JonoinGurteen wrote: »

Bar / Chain oil has a few functions. The most important 2 functions are lubrication and cooling. Non-amended oils allow cooling and lubrication to the top of the bar and tend to lubricate the bearings in the chain just fine. These oils tend NOT to make it around the top of the bar to cool / lubricate the bottom of the bar. Regular turning over of the bar helps get the maximum out of the reduced usage of the bar. The chain tends to wear a little faster too, but the price savings on the oil are often worth the extra costs associated with reduced bar life. You should, with reasonable care, be able to still get full chain life. I have used a variety of oils for various reasons in various applications.

These few functions you mention.... hmmmm
What i wonder is the additive used in bar and chain oil to make it nice and sticky an stringy??
i wonder further what additive we might add to canola oil to make it stickier?
any food scientists, organic chemists out there?/

Strikes me that castor bean oil was used in the past (apparently inferior to quality whale oils) as a lubricating oil,

I wonder what vewg oil base the commercial veg based (very expensive "green") uses and further what additives they use

tim

JonoinGurteen

The additive was (probably still is) "Paratack" which is first dissolved in an oil soluble solvent (usually paraffin) then blended into the oil. I am under the impression from an oil blender that i used to buy oils from that it is very expensive and not just a case of pouring some into a drum. When I used either used engine oil, used cooking oils or olive oils, it was always preferable to NOT use the additive. The used engine oils were hot filtered first and the oil pumps opened to the max to let the oil really fly ff the bar, taking the carbon from burnt timber with it to reduce the grinding paste effect obtained with sticky oils. The used cooking oils was used when cutting up carcasses for transport to feeding sites of vultures and African Wild Dogs. I did not often cut up really deep frozen meat for human (only family and friends)consuption, but only used olive oil for this

JonoinGurteen

I do not know what is added to the "green" oils as sold by Shell and other companies. these have been available for quite sometime, but rather pricey.

I suppose looking up a bio degradable tackifier could help. MAYBE the 'testers' have decided that the concentration of paratack is low enough to not be considered a pollutant ? I honestly do not know. Some oils can be heated really hot, then become almost waxy when cooled, but I do not think they become stickier though. Bar rails and the heels of the cutter carriers on the chain run at over 600 Degrees C! (Yes, they glow) without any lubrication. Even a tiny amount of oils retained under the chain make an enormous difference.

99nsr125

..Brian.. wrote: »

Does anyone use Canola (rapeseed) or other vegetable oil for their chain? I was going to pick up 4l of Alco Bar and Chain Oil in my local Topline today but they wanted almost €20 for it which I thought was a bit much. Been reading about canola oil since and seems like a legit alternative, cleaner and cheaper.

Anyonr any personal experience?

Yup
I've been using sunflower/soya/rapeseed for years
Oiller is turned up to the max and sometimes it makes me hungry for chips.

I turn the bar and chain and can't say I've noticed any difference

Do not forget to clean the saw otherwise it'll be a semi hard mess in no time

..Brian..

Thanks for the replies guys. Been through about 2 litres of rapeseed oil so far and so far so good! With the oil tap fully open, I seem to be getting about 3 tanks of petrol to 2 tanks of oil.

Must give the saw a good scrub now.

Oldtree

Ive only a litre or two left of a bought biodegradable vegi oil (bought a big drum a few years back) and I'll be trying the vegi oil route (at long last says you ). I spoke to a man a few years back that was using used vegi oil for a while and he said that the used vegi oil was stickier in his opinion. To that end I have been saving up the chipper vegi oil, letting it settle and then filtering it through a muslin cloth. I then let it settle again and the bottom half of the tub still seems a bit cloudy.

Should I be using a better filter, if so what please? or is the cloudy stuff ok to use?

99nsr125 wrote: »

Do not forget to clean the saw otherwise it'll be a semi hard mess in no time

would be grateful on any pointers on how you clean saw, thank you.

JonoinGurteen wrote: »

When I used either used engine oil,.......
The used engine oils were hot filtered first and the oil pumps opened to the max to let the oil really fly ff the bar, taking the carbon from burnt timber with it to reduce the grinding paste effect obtained with sticky oils.

Used engine oil is a known carcinogen, not only getting this all over yourself but you were inhaling it too.

..Brian..

Well I've put the saw through its paces in the last month or two since starting this thread. I've been through a couple of bottles of rapeseed oil and so far so good.