Vegetable oils for bar lube? Is there really a need for bar specific oil?

[rustyb]

To really improve the performance of Canola, use a high oleic acid Canola and use a specific saw chain additive package at around 20%/volume which adds the necessary tack and EW additives, and importantly for NA and Europe, allows flow at very low temps.

There's that term "necessary" again. One doesn't need to add ANYTHING to Canola for it to work. That's the beauty of it. Pick some up while grocery shopping, pour it into the saw and start cutting. It's that simple.

Adding things to Canola just makes it unhealthier, takes time and costs money. There is no logical reason to reinvent the wheel (unless perhaps in very cold temps which I do not have experience with).

 

[Tree Machine]

You can go to the manufacturer, order a free sample and try it out yourself.

This bottle of pure tack was wrapped because I was needing to hang it upside down to do a time-lapse of how long it took to empty out of the bottle.
(I think it was like 17 hours)


I have the MSDS sheet on it somewhere and molecularly we can figure out what it looks like and why it does what it does,

but we'll keep coming back around to that we're working with a constant infusion system
where the oil lubricates, and is then thrown off. The question then becomes, is tack really needed at all? The answer is what you want it to be.

 

[Tree Machine]

Those that are saying Canola et al are more expensive to produce than mineral based lubes, using vegie oil for bar oil, at least in the case of canola, it doesn't need to be esterfied as it does to produce quality biodiesel. You just use it from the pressing without further refining, just filtering, whereas biodiesel needs to be esterfied meaning further processing involving heat and acids, etc.

Thanks, Rick.

The processing cost, and this is interesting, can be looked at differently. Soy oil, for example, they're pressing and processing the beans for protein, for the food for soy products and industrial animal feeds. The oil needs to be removed so the feed won't go rancid. They bottle up this secondary product, add a smidge of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) as an antioxidant. That's all. There's inherent value in that nothing more needs to be done to the oil for us to use it in our chainsaws.

Canola. This seed plant does well in Canada, where the short growing season in the north and mid Saskatchewan, the vast plains and fertile soils, canola is ideally suited to that environment, the oil removed, canola meal is a high-protein livestock feed.



Canola has a lower phase change point, as shown in low temps, side by side.

 

[tdi-rick]

There's that term "necessary" again. One doesn't need to add ANYTHING to Canola for it to work. That's the beauty of it. Pick some up while grocery shopping, pour it into the saw and start cutting. It's that simple.

Adding things to Canola just makes it unhealthier, takes time and costs money. There is no logical reason to reinvent the wheel (unless perhaps in very cold temps which I do not have experience with).

It may well 'work' as is, and so did engine oil in the forties and fifties, but would you use that stuff in a modern engine ?
I'd want at least some EP/AW additives in there thanks to the loads and extreme speed on the sprocket, bearings and chain. Tackifiers are a point to argue on, even amongst blenders.

Unless I see a test where 'x' bar and chain is run for 'x' hours with straight canola side by side an identical bar and chain using a good conventional additised oil, and wear and life are similar or better I'll remain sceptical as to whether straight canola is up to the job.

There's a huge difference between something working, and working to the best we can have it.
Up until the 1950's motor oil was basic stuff, pretty much the crap that was pumped out of the ground, filtered, mixed with other oils that were pumped out of the ground to obtain a specific viscosity and added to an engine.
It worked, but engines were rebuilt between 15 and 50,000 miles as they were stuffed. Yes, metalurgy and tolerances also had a bearing on this, but the bottom line is that the oils were very basic.

Modern engine and gear oils comprise an additive package of between 15 and 25% of the total volume of oil to enhance their performance with pretty trick base oils compared to even fifteen years ago. Yes, a number of things in those lubes aren't needed in bar oil, including the oxidation stability of the modern base oils, but I would still think we would need some EP/AW component to prevent premature wear.
FWIW there are specific bar/chain additive packages available that when added at 18-20% still allows for over 90% bio-degradability, and the cradle to grave study I quoted from above used additised canola bar oil, not straight canola.

One advantage of canola over mineral oils is it's far better viscosity index (VI). This is in the region of 220 and up, compared to a Group I mineral oil of around 95-110.
All this means is that canola doesn't thin out near as fast as a mineral oil and it also has a pretty good pour temp, but be warned, from what I've read it does some pretty weird stuff below 0*C so needs something to help cold flow properties.

I'd like to use it, and it's pretty cheap here, I can buy it in any size drum I want as canola is a major crop, but I just couldn't bring myself to use it straight. Bars, sprockets and chains are damned expensive on this side of the Pacific.

I tell you what, I'll post on an oil board for a couple of blenders I know and ask their opinion on straight canola vs an additised canola. Could be interesting.

 

[rustyb]

It may well 'work' as is, and so did engine oil in the forties and fifties, but would you use that stuff in a modern engine ?
I'd want at least some EP/AW additives in there thanks to the loads and extreme speed on the sprocket, bearings and chain. Tackifiers are a point to argue on, even amongst blenders.

I tell you what, I'll post on an oil board for a couple of blenders I know and ask their opinion on straight canola vs an additised canola. Could be interesting.

There's no comparison between engine oil and bar/chain oil. Engine oil stays in the engine where it is pumped through a system thousands of times. Chainsaws use a Total Loss Lubricating system. The oil is on the bar/chain for a nanosecond before it is flung off. Simple physics. If it actually clung on to your saw, think how heavy and gunked up it would be at the end of the day. Pretty silly, isn't it

You can pose the question to the blenders you refer to, but honestly here; what would you expect them to say???

"Uh, yeah, there is no logic in blending when you could save time, money and be healthier with straight Canola that works great for the nanosecond it's on the bar"

Uh huh, I can see an "oil blender" saying that. I mean, who wouldn't want to shoot themselves in the foot?

 

[Randy88]

Tree machine: Don't want to start ww3 here but soy oil is extruded from beans not to prevent feed from going rancid but FOR the oil, thats what beans were developed for and originally grown comercially for was the oil, the stuff left over was a by product of the processing system and originally never had any use for it and was disposed of, not until testing was done that the junk leftover was determined fit for animals and has been used ever since as a feed stock and by no means will leaving the oil in cause the feed to go rancid, they stay good unprocessed for years, their called SOYBEANS.


The use of beans has grown in the last 30 years and the " crush" as they call processing has led to the development of many new products that have soy oil in and many more in the development stage along with corn and many other crops, if I dug around long enough I could find how many uses the soybean has and the many different products that the oil has gone into if you'd like to know. But the jest of this is the OIL is whats valuable in the soybean not the byproduct called bean meal thats fed to livestock:


When soybeans made their appearance as a farm crop I believe forage hay was one of the first uses in the 1930's as a drought crop where the whole plant was fed to livestock and then cooking oil was one of the major players in its development that drove the need for it in the first place as a row crop, if not number one, in the top five anyhow, today I'd venture a guess and say maybe somewhere between 100-200 things the oil is purchased for in everyday use.

Now if you'd like to go head to head on the use of soyoil and the products thats it in and if you'd actually like to do comparisions about the products your claiming you know a lot about maybe start with narrowing down your selection of those products because soy oil or corn oil isn't really doing a lot for the rest of us that do know theres about 50 differnt kinds of each that you could pull off the store shelves and the differnt ingredents that are in each, so far all you've done is narrowed it down to about 400 differnt products give or take, heres a hint but don't take it the wrong way, THEIR MADE FOR COOKING FOOD, different food requires differnt formulations and thus the many differnt formulas of product for sale to the household user. You have this illusion that cooking oil is cooking oil and soy oil is just that soy oil, or corn oil or conola oi or whatever, are you honestly thinking that they just squeeze it clean it and bottle it and add pinch of this to make it yummy??? If so theres a lot of scientists that have been wasing their lives working in labs when all they needed to do is go squeeze some and whola its oil.

Ask a lot of the folks that do cooking and you'd be surprised as to who likes what for cooking what, its called brands of product and no thier not the same they have things called formulas, those littel guys sitting in science labs doing testing of things for differnt companies that are copywrited so others can't sell their fornula, trade name and ingredients, the only common deniminator is that they are fit for human consumption and approved by the FDA.


Thats like saying somethings slippery, thus melting ice and vasaline are virtually interchangeable. Your discussing the comparisions of gear lube and 10wt motor oil because everybody knows that oils oil and by all means go for it and let me know who wins.


Don't want to get into a twenty page arguement here, and yes I do have an open mind and I really do read a lot of the discussion here and am interested in exploring new options, its called learning and thats why I'm here but keep the comparisions on the same playing field, so we can actually get some good out of it to know which products do what and of what brand, something like flowability of Wesson at certain temps and a certain brand of canola will do this if left in the saw but another brand of canola won't, you know something we can actually take to heart and use. Do comparisions of all the corn oils and then all the soy or canola and then against corn vs. canola, we want to know which kind and brand has flowability at certain temps, cooking oil vs frying oil, stuff like that. The tack thing was good just expand the idea somewhat and inform us so we know what you found out and and keep working on it, its not just cooking vs petroleum theres a lot more to it and yes we do want to know just like use 10wt in winter and 30wt in summer.


There maybe something to the use of using cooking oil as bar lube and who knows where the future is headed, remember testing in labs are done everyday and there probably has been some scientist sitting reading these articles and is already working on the issue because if theres money to be made someone will put the idea to use, the ad could say " cook with it, lube with it in all kinds of weather on the store shelves and endorsed by saw manufacturers everywhere," could happen tomorrow for all we know.

 

[Tree Machine]

Tackifiers are a point to argue on, even amongst blenders.

Tackifiers have MANY uses in the industry, and we could discuss how they're applied to the chain on a roller coaster so the oil won't drip off the chain on it's way up the first big hill. But that doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Unless I see a test where 'x' bar and chain is run for 'x' hours with straight canola side by side an identical bar and chain using a good conventional additised oil, and wear and life are similar or better I'll remain sceptical as to whether straight canola is up to the job.

Please be clear that I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything. We're simply putting the information out there, you need to convince your own self. I think the test you describe would say something, not as much as the info gathered from 7 or 8 years field use, and independent, honest reports from in-field users. I personally, wouldn't want to base this decision on a single or series of 'wear tests'. I can pretty much tell you how they'll come out.

There's a huge difference between something working, and working to the best we can have it.

This is the part that really blew me away, take it purely as an opinion, though I've read it in other places, canola oil actually works better than regular bar oil. Possibly I'm biassed, and since there is no quantitative, scientific evidence to back this, I'll keep it as an opinion, but as for the single point of lubricity, keeping the bar and chain lubed while in use, no problem whatsoever. Truly exceptional performance. Flawless. Better than I had expected it to be.

I would still think we would need some EP/AW component to prevent premature wear.

I'll just be straight-up and honest, wear on the sprocket and bar and chain are so similar, you'll be hard-pressed to find a noticeable difference.

One advantage of canola over mineral oils is it's far better viscosity index (VI). This is in the region of 220 and up, compared to a Group I mineral oil of around 95-110.
All this means is that canola doesn't thin out near as fast as a mineral oil and it also has a pretty good pour temp, but be warned, from what I've read it does some pretty weird stuff below 0*C so needs something to help cold flow properties.

The pictures of the oil bottles above were at -3C. It takes, really, really bitter to bring canola to phase change. Even then, canola will pour, turning back to liquid with just a couple degrees difference. Even in its 'frozen' state it still 'flows' out of the bottle and once in the saw, starting the saw warms the system and the lubricant stays liquid. I've heard some say 'frozen' oil flows like molasses, but that's a broad comparison. If you poured the two at the same temperature you'd see the flow properties are worlds apart.

 

[046]

another vote for veggie oils... doesn't seem to matter which one... what ever is cheapest. works great!

main drawback is can't use when cold... veggie oil gets almost like molasses when cold... barely pours... a problem until saw warms up. a pita to use when cold.

don't think veggie oil turns rancid from sitting, but veggie oils do gunk up from sitting.

ran into a bulk buy on new 15/40 motor oil ... so that's what I've been using.

 

[Tree Machine]

don't think veggie oil turns rancid from sitting, but veggie oils do gunk up from sitting.

They 'gunk up' in the clutch sidecase (mix with sawdust and collect there, just like regular bar oil), a reason why we do NOT recommend veggie for homeowners or part-timers. If the oil sits for extended periods, exposed to the atmosphere, it can and will do weird things.

This is why we don't recommend you use veggie oil, and then not use your saw for weeks or months. It's the guys using daily that because of the fresh oil flushing out the last, and former being regularly replenished with fresh lubricating oil that this whole thing works. If you are going to NOT use your saw for extended periods, run a half tank of regular bar oil through at the end of the day before putting your saw into storage. If you're a regular user, canola per norm and just clean and maintain your saw at a respectable level.

I find it easier to clean a veggie saw than a tack-bar oil saw. Debris scrapes and blows out easier with compressed air when its not sticky.

 

[046]

deleted dup

 

[046]

totally agree... veggie oils is not for occasional users.
from a cost savings point of view... not worth the hassles

have not tried blends, which are offered by some commercial bar oil mfg.

locally bar oil is $10 gallon vs my bulk new motor oil was $1.50 gal
basically most any new motor oil will do fine... sometimes one can find bulk feeder oils for much less $$$...

 

[Tree Machine]

totally agree... veggie oils is not for occasional users.
from a cost savings point of view... not worth the hassles

If you are not sure what a bar rail guide channel is, or know what makes a good groove-scraping tool..... If you aren't cleaning your guide channel and oiler hole every time you remove the chain...... if you only remove the chain once or twice a year...... if you get a year or two out of a single chain......
Don't use vegetable oil.


I am really directing to those who use a lot of oil because they use their saws a lot. You make your living doing this, it occupies much of your time and it spills over into other parts of your life, the decisions you make in your work life.

Especially if you're using fifty gallons a year or better. You are my fellow professionals.




The distinction between regular saw users, and non-regular saw users HAS to be pointed out, however, the line between the two can be wide and fuzzy. Let's just say, for the record, my fellow regular saw users, you know who you are.

 

[tdi-rick]

Thanks for taking the time to reply TM.

My point on the tackifiers is how much is need on saw chain.
One bloke I know who is very switched on reckons most chain/bar brews use too much in his experience as an oil formulator.

The only reason I question whether straight canola can handle the loads is that any oil base I've had anything to do with needed something added to help it along, even the exxy esters. If you blokes have that many years using it and bar/chain life seems on a par or better with what you had before, that's pretty impressive.
We mustn't forget that 'normal' chain/bar lube is pretty rudimentary stuff using the cheapest base stocks and minimal additives so that the blenders are making much better margins on it than engine oils, at least with what they charge here.

I'll dig up the reference, but the problem with the cold flow properties of canola were well below what you tested at, and below what I experience here or even want to cut at.

If part time cutters like me want to use vegie or bio oils and then leave the saw sit for some weeks or months, the recommendation I heard was to drain the tank, fill a little with some SAE 30 oil and run it through for a bit to flush out the pump, then you wont have any problems with gumming.

 

[rustyb]

Originally Posted by Slamm
Using the veggie oil will work just fine, but the problem is you can't leave it in your saw. After a period of time it becomes the stickiest substance known to mankind and you can't get it off.
Sam

A few people have commented on this yet I have not experienced this at all.

A couple of my saws only see use once or twice a year...and I never drain the oil or do anything else special. When I pull these saws out from a long hiatus, I do some times notice a "stickieness" between the bar and chain. However, this completely disappears as soon as the saw is used and the oiler gets some fresh oil out.

Perhaps some veggie oils can cause problems, I don't know. 90% of the time, I have used straight canola oil with only natural preservatives or no preservatives at all. The other 10% of the time, I used corn, soy and perhaps another type...with natural preservatives or no preservatives at all. My experience is 4 years with four completely different saws.

TDI-Rick, 046 & Tree Machine,

Forgive me if this was not over looked as it appeared to me but in regards to veggie oils not being for "occasional" users, above is a previous post of mine from page 11 of this thread.

Since I posted, I do recall the chain being stuck to the bar on one of these saws after nearly a years worth of sitting. No big deal though as I just put some gloves on, pulled it loose and started cutting. The oil in the tank was like new.

For what it's worth, most of the Canola I have used has been the Kirkland brand from Costco. I buy it by the gallon.

If people are having issues with their oilers -- and they are positive it's due to the veggie oil -- then there really must be something to the different brands and types of veggie oils as someone alluded to here a few posts up.

Here are the saws I have used Canola oil in without a single issue: Stihl 180 electric, Makita 5012B electric, Stihl MS180 and Stihl MS260.

 

[tdi-rick]

Well, interesting responses from a couple of blokes that know what they are talking about...

Gentleman 1.

"Well, it's certainly biodegradeable and pure canola is an ester.

If it's about 30 weight and flows well, more power to them.

How long a wear history do they have for comparison to OTC lubes.

I would think it wouldn't cling very well and I too would prefer about 500 ppm of zddp.

The only other concern I would have is the level of microbe buildup without antimicrobials and antioxidants. If they use fresh canola and use it quickly, this may not be a problem.

Gentleman 2

its OK will work very well though will over time oxidize to a heavy gear oil vis but that Ok for a bar oil

So that would be a qualified thumbs up. Straight replies from two different people that have and do blend lubricants ranging from industrial to motor racing and aerospace applications.

 

[rustyb]

Not sure I qualify as someone who "know(s) what they are talking about" but as a follow up to my previous post, I pulled out my Makita saw yesterday to cut down a little bush for a friend. It was the first time this saw had been used since last June. Its chain was completely free (no stickiness) and the Canola in the tank was good enough to cook with; no rancidness.

I should note however that this saw has a manual oiler...so, it may not always get as much oil on the bar and chain as saws with automatic oilers. In other words, it may be possible that there was less oil on the bar and chain when I put it away last June. At any rate, I thought it was worth mentioning.......

By the way; thanks for your follow up, TDI-Rick.

 

[Tree Machine]

True, the inside of the tank would be free of air, except what's in there, and the antioxidant in the oil will protect from that, just like it would in a sealed bottle. Microbes would also not flourish because, well, nothing lives on straight oil. Microorganisms need protein for cell membranes and organelles, without a nitrogen source reproduction, colonization and habitat are really very unlikely.

The areas of concern are those open to the atmosphere, those are the parts that are visible and inspectable and periodically cleanable.

Which brings me to a question...... If you were running veggie and you are going on multi-month bush hike in the jungles of Brushzekistan..... and you forgot to do any preparative shelf work to the saws, you have two minutes before your wife starts screaming..... what do you do?


I would think WD-40 or some similar cleaning lubricant shot into the guide rail, good and heavy. Just intuitively I would think this would be a good management exercise for the bar and chain.

 

[Tree Machine]

And yea, thanks for the followup with the blenders, TDI Rick

 

[Smokerr]

Y'all that are thinking of veggie oil might wantto be sure there are no bears around

Those who are going to use bacon grease might want to have a pistol on your belts (that's so you can shoot yourself when the pack of bears attack!)

Or you can help out your fellow cutters and stick with bar oil or motor oil

 

[GASoline71]

You're wastin' your breath...

Gary