Canola and other bio chain oils

I've decided that I've had enough of smelling like an oil change shop after milling. I'm also milling in places I'd rather not leave a waste zone. Cutting a little firewood or felling trees is one thing but running a saw all day long within a 10 foot radius is another. I'm leaving a half gallon or more on the ground and I'd like to stop that.

Yesterday I tried straight canola oil in my 3120 with 42" bar. Canola by itself did not oil enough. Using canola in the auxillary oiler made a big difference. Still a bit dry but it worked fine on a big oak log. Using a mix of canola and petro in the saw and straight canola in the aux. oiler worked really well. I was pretty happy with the result. But if I'm switching, I want to leave petro behind for good. I could tell a huge difference in smell at the end of yesterday's milling. No headache either. I'm motivated to change.

What I'm wondering:

Is there any difference between canola and Stihl BioPlus or any other purpose made bio chain oil? Do they cling better? Work better on long bars? I know the purpose made products cost more but I think I am willing to pay if I can have one product to use all the time and get results as good as conventional oils.

What I'd like NOT to do is to spend over $100 for 5 gallons delivered and find its no better than canola. (no one stocks it around here) So who has direct experiences with bio lubes and milling? I'd love to hear about them.

Thanks

There's a bunch of threads discussing canola here. Search is your friend.

I've read them all multiple times and PM'd some of the authors. Thanks for the tip but you're too late this time.

huskyhank said:

Yesterday I tried straight canola oil in my 3120 with 42" bar. Canola by itself did not oil enough.

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That's also my experience.

Using canola in the auxillary oiler made a big difference. Still a bit dry but it worked fine on a big oak log.

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How is your oil delivered on the nose? It sounds like you might just need to up the canola delivery a bit.
Like this;

Using a mix of canola and petro in the saw and straight canola in the aux. oiler worked really well. I was pretty happy with the result. But if I'm switching, I want to leave petro behind for good. I could tell a huge difference in smell at the end of yesterday's milling. No headache either. I'm motivated to change.

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My milling headaches are usually caused by using 25:1 mix more that petro bar oil.

Is there any difference between canola and Stihl BioPlus or any other purpose made bio chain oil? Do they cling better? Work better on long bars? I know the purpose made products cost more but I think I am willing to pay if I can have one product to use all the time and get results as good as conventional oils.

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Bioplus has a vicosity of 80 mm^2/s at 40ºC which is more than double that for straight canola oil so either it's not canola or it's canola with something added.
The MSDS see http://www.stihllibrary.com/pdf/msds/BioPlus-MSDS.pdf just says its "based on vegetable oil with an additive"
It also says it is 90% bio degradable - At a guess its 90% vegetable oil with 10% additives.
Yes at those viscosities it will cling much better than straight canola but that viscosity is purely so it survives getting around the nose so just up the aux oiler output and you should be OK.

I'm just using up what petro oil I have left and then I'm switching to all canola for milling - well not quite, I'm looking at a canola Tallow Mix. I realize that is not going to work for you guys in colder climes but I'll run it on a fw logs and see how I go.

As I understand it, from a phone discussion with them, Baileys Motion Lotion Bio is a canola/tallow mix. I can have it shipped across the country which adds nearly 50% to the cost. (maybe I should wait until they have a free shipping sale on!!!) But it'd be nice to figure out a regular and local source of supply.

I used a very high tech oil metering device - a small twig jammed up in the oil line. I let it drip at the nose/bar junction enough to keep a nice puddle like your picture shows. It lubes but the chain still seemed dry at the end of the cut. I have the Granburg through bolt to meter the oil into the bar but have not drilled this bar for it. Somehow it seems that the oil being in the groove might be better. Although I think several on this forum gave up on that.

huskyhank said:

I have the Granburg through bolt to meter the oil into the bar but have not drilled this bar for it. Somehow it seems that the oil being in the groove might be better. Although I think several on this forum gave up on that.

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One of those was me. I have 2 milling bars (30" and 42") with the through bar bolt oiler and the rest without. I haven't noticed any difference between the two.

I ordered a 5 gallon bucket of BioPlus today.
Milling report to follow in about a week.

huskyhank said:

As I understand it, from a phone discussion with them, Baileys Motion Lotion Bio is a canola/tallow mix. I can have it shipped across the country which adds nearly 50% to the cost. (maybe I should wait until they have a free shipping sale on!!!) But it'd be nice to figure out a regular and local source of supply.

I used a very high tech oil metering device - a small twig jammed up in the oil line. I let it drip at the nose/bar junction enough to keep a nice puddle like your picture shows. It lubes but the chain still seemed dry at the end of the cut. I have the Granburg through bolt to meter the oil into the bar but have not drilled this bar for it. Somehow it seems that the oil being in the groove might be better. Although I think several on this forum gave up on that.

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Here is what I did to both sides of my bar that will only be used for milling. I drilled through the bar at the grove and silver soldered an 1/8 pipe steel fitting to the bar. I then connected the nose oil line to the tanks and boy does it oil good. I had a problem with my manual pump oiler last time out and was able to finish my milling just using the nose oiler.


Here is a picture of the installation.




The problem I had with my manual pump was the piston seal was swelling too much from using a synthetic refrigerant oil mixed with bar oil. I ended up taking out the rubber seal and making a new seal from leather like to old style saw oilers. It works great now. But I think I'm going to start using the new bio oils or canola oil instead. I tried the stihl bio-plus and liked how it worked in the pump and nose oiler.

jerry-