Veggie oil?

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is veggie oil funky or skunky?

  • funky

    Votes: 74 73.3%
  • skunky

    Votes: 27 26.7%

  • Total voters
    101
Tree Machine, I hve been in business for 15 years and barely ever have HAD to replace a bar. I don't know... I have heard conflicting reports.. Some guys seem to replace their bars often, where others rarely, usually only when they are accidentally bent, or else an oiler problem..

ANyhow, I never have to really replace my bars.. Why do u have to replace your bars so often..?

I guess this is an old thread, but maybe someone can respond.. Thanks

ps. maybe this says a little something about running vegetable oil??

greenstar~

if you keep the bar clean there shouldnt be any oiling problem as a result of the something with the bar. i use an air compressor to blow out my saws every other day or so. i bend a bar every 6 mos or so, usually when it gets pinched by wood or stuck in wood thats on its way to the ground. i have pretty good luck with getting smaller bars back into shape, seems like larger bars are never the same. i've noticed alot of the guys on my crew do something really annoying, drives me crazy. when making a stump cut, they'll pull up at an angle instead of back on a plane with the saw/cut. they'll also lean on the saw in the cut when they reposition themselves. i even watched a guy try to pop the stump off with the saw in the cut!


But I am asking about whether "TreeMachine" is maybe unconsciously replacing bars so often BECAUSE of veg-oil use actually ruining/wearing bars more quickly.

PS... USUALLY I see BAR DAMAGE AND WEAR just past the end sprocket on the underside of the bar! Thats where it always seems to wear the worst on my saws. I just looked at my 22" 036Pro bar and its actually got chips and a small chunk taken out there, and it was concerning me even..
Anyway, other than burring down along the whole length of the bar every so often, which seems easily taken care of with any file after just taking the chain off, this is the only wear and damage to a bar I ever seem to experience... So I don't know about "a year, year and a half out of a bar!!"!! TreeMachine. SOUNDS VERY PECULIAR!


I'm sorry I had to pick this out fellas. The argument for non-petroleum based oil use for bar oil sounds strong, and I may try it, but I was trained as a crtitical thinker while getting my degree in biology AND this FREQUENCY OF REPLACEMENT is acting as something of a red-flag!
 
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Greenstar said:
this FREQUENCY OF REPLACEMENT is acting as something of a red-flag!
Hi Greenstar. Sorry I didn't get to answering your question, but here goes. I'll try to answer in enough detail, but possibly at the expense of offering too much overall in explanation.

First, 18 months on a bar is a good run for me. I am a commercial Arborist, the owner of the business and see a lot of continuous action. Unlike Austin1, who flushes his tanks at the end of the season with diesel (a good idea), I don't have an 'end of the season', just brief vacations. Winter is as busy as Summer and is often when I hire extra help. 50 - 60 hour weeks are the norm for most seasons but it goes down to about 40 in the Winter because of the shortened daylight hours. Just the sheer number of hours of usage has something to do with bar life. Maybe cycling between sub-freeze / operating temp does too.... I don't really know.

I claim to recycle every bit of every tree. This means chips get bioconverted back to soil, premium logs get milled into planks and a lot of firewood gets cut. The chips, it is nice to say, have only residual vegetable oil in them, so folks can handle them for landscaping, or be safely used for playground use of the bioconverted soil can be used for growing vegetables. Milling logs into lumber is very tough on a bar and chain.

I have a Bandit 6" chipper, meaning a 6" log is the maximum size it can take and if we're wise if we only chip 4" and down to conserve fuel and engine wear and minimize trips to get rid of chips. So what happens to pretty much everything 4 inch diameter and up ? Firewood. This may be laughable to larger companies with big chip trucks, big chippers, prentice or crane loaders and bigger crews but our efficiency (profit) is equalled by the fact that our equipment overhead is way low and I have guys standing in line to come and take the firewood. The tradeoff to the low overhead costs is that I have to make a LOT of firewood. Having a number of firewood recipients makes it so we don't have to handle the wood very much, maybe just toss it into a general area, but if I time their arrival just right I cut it and never have to touch it. However, I make a number of truckloads a week of firewood, forearm diameter and up, and this may be in part why I can't get two years out of a bar.

I cut the stubs off the downed logs and limbs flush with the log's surface. This is a bigger cut than leaving a stub protruding out past the branch collar. More cutting, but a higher quality end-product. It makes it so the firewood splits better and stacks better. My main firewood guys generally drop their duties and come get the wood when I call. In like, I make them the highest quality firewood of which I am able (they're in the business to sell it). More detail, yea, more cutting, but in the sense that they are helping me to help them, we all do what we can to make this system work. As a biologist, Greenstar, you are certain to understand what is meant by a beneficial, mutualistic symbiotic relationship.

Big rounds, too big for the firewood guys to load by hand I will cut lengthwise into fourths. Cutting with the grain creates 'shredded mozzerella' sawdust. Big takedowns require a lot of firewood to be cut in the first place, and when I get into quadding these big diameter rounds it just makes for a lot of work for the saws. This could have something to do with bar life.

I hit dirt now and then like any of us. Sometimes I press on, rather than stopping and resharpening, depending on how bad, or what I hit, and how much daylight is left and how close I am to being finished when the chain drops in effectiveness. I like to think I'm a stickler for running a sharp chain all the time, but I'm nowhere near perfect in that department, though I am acutely aware of when the chain is too dull to move on. These moments of less-than-perfect sharpness could have something to do with bar life.

I run 8-pin, rather than 7 pin sprockets, giving a higher chain speed. This could have something to do with bar life.

My main firewood maker is a power-ported Husky 346 XP that I changed out the 7-pin .325 sprocket to an 8-pin 3/8 sprocket. I run 3/8 low profile chain and a smaller 14" bar, the same used on top-handled climbing saws. The reason is I have a higher-powered saw with 12,500 RPM top speed and a thinner kerf bar and chain is I want wicked-fast cutting of firewood since I do so much of that. I take advantages anywhere I can. The bar and chains are undersize for the saw. Bars this size, though, aren't that expensive and I buy chain by the 100-foot reel and have chain-making gear onboard in the field. I think this unconventional setup might have more to do with bar life than anything else.

I sometimes do plunge-cutting for creating mortise and tenons, or gargantuan dovetails, crafting occasional benches out of trunk/log sections. Not a whole lot, but I do get these requests now and then and if they're willing to pay my regular climbing fee I'll do whatever they want. I can blow a tip doing a plunge while the rest of the bar is fine. This can take a bar out early. Mini bars don't generally have replaceable sprocket tips, so you blow out the tip, you say goodby to the bar.

I cut stumps really low for the stump grinding guy. Often there is dirt pockets embedded in the convolutions of the buttress. Sometimes you go through them, the chain dulls somewhat, but you're still cutting, so you keep going, especially if it is the last cut of the day. This definitely creates accelerated wear on a bar.

Recently I had to dice up a bunch of piles of stacked brush out in some guy's woods. Stacks taller than me, he was wanting us to drag 5 of these piles out of the woods to be chipped. I politely declined, but offered an option to diminish the size of the piles from 8 feet tall down to two or three, leaving a compact area where he could continue to pile brush on top of into the future. This is very, very hard on a bar as all the branches and limbs are going all directions and your chain wavers left and right offering inconsistent pressure on the left and right bar rails as it passes through the tangled mess. You have to run your chain with extra tension, and still you're gonna pop the chain off now and then. Not recommended practice.

What else? I work in the rain and really don't mind it. If I can leave a crowned-out major trunk standing, poised for felling, and come back and fell and buck it up in the rain, this is a good use of time that I might otherwise stay home. This won't make sense to many, but with as heavy a schedule as I have, it sometimes makes more sense to clean up the crown, leave a pile of firewood at the base of the standing trunk and move on to other climbing duties while the weather is good. This maximizes profit, allows me to get to the next waiting client and come back to something I can do when it rains and climbing is less than ideal or less safe. I'm not sure, but using a saw in the rain has to be harder on it, as well as tougher on the bar and chain. This could have something to do with bar life.

All things considered, I'm pretty thrilled if I get a year and half out of a bar. With a 14" bar costing hardly more than a 14" pizza, the comparative cost of 18 months of bar use compared with other expenses like 18 months of lunches, or 18 months of fuel mix, the cost of 14" bars (though we're not talking about money) is almost laughably low.

Back in my petro bar oil days it seemed like the life of a bar was not any different.

Right now I'm running a 12" titanium carving bar on the 346. Sizzling fast firewood cutting, a wee bit lighter overall.

As predicted, a whole lot of words.
I hope this answers your question.
 
I have A BIG PROBLEM. I have been using VEGETABLE OIL in all my saws this year, and NOW THAT THE WEATHER IS GETTING COLD, THE OILERS ARE CLOGGED.
This has never been a problem for me in 14 years in the industry, BUT since I started using using vegetable oil this year, it works great when warm out, and I swear by it now, but ALL MY SAWS ARE CLOGGED NOW!
I'm in New England, so its not that cold. Its barely dropped below freezing, maybe a few nights so far, but barely!

However, this is a real situation. Both my Stihls 026 Pro and 046 Magnum, as well as both my Husky 338's all are having trouble oiling. Is this a big problem? I poured a little bit of gasoline in the tanks to try to thin it out and clear it out, but its only helped a little.

PLEASE, IF ANYONE HAS SOME ADVICE AS TO WHAT TO DO!

Thank you.

Greenstar-Boston
 
I have A BIG PROBLEM. I have been using VEGETABLE OIL in all my saws this year, and NOW THAT THE WEATHER IS GETTING COLD, THE OILERS ARE CLOGGED.
This has never been a problem for me in 14 years in the industry, BUT since I started using using vegetable oil this year, it works great when warm out, and I swear by it now, but ALL MY SAWS ARE CLOGGED NOW!
I'm in New England, so its not that cold. Its barely dropped below freezing, maybe a few nights so far, but barely!

However, this is a real situation. Both my Stihls 026 Pro and 046 Magnum, as well as both my Husky 338's all are having trouble oiling. Is this a big problem? I poured a little bit of gasoline in the tanks to try to thin it out and clear it out, but its only helped a little.

PLEASE, IF ANYONE HAS SOME ADVICE AS TO WHAT TO DO!

Thank you.

Greenstar-Boston

Probably have to put a little alcohol in there to break it up such as methenal or ethenal. Vegtable oil is plant based so the sterile glucocides are probably starting to crystalize and gel the oil up. Vegtable oil gels at pretty high tempatures.


On a side note, I've been useing used motor oil for several years but I don't use it on pruning residential trees because it looks horrible on the fresh cuts. Also I don't run the saws full time so it may be bad on the saws if you are using them full time.
 
Clogged oilers? For goodness sake, that is awful. Whatever you do, don't clean the saws, ever.

I hear what your saying but you can clean it all you want but the parrifins will still get waxy residue on the screens inside the oil resivior. Cleaning it will only help temporarly.

The only thing you could do is pre-cool the oil then screen it to try and get all the sterile glucocides out before useing it as bar oil. Even then you probably won't get all the crystals out.
 
I hear what you're sayin' Lego, it's just not what I've been seeing. Oilers clog sometimes with any oil. I've had good luck with Canola oil. I don't do anything different and I don't break the saws down and clean them much more than once every couple weeks with daily use. I usually just sharpen them and blow them out after I use them and that seems to be enough.
 
The headrests in my chip truck are a nest of thorns and the motor runs on blood, sweat, and tears. I only get about half the mileage on sweat and tears. Your ropes must be supple.
 
If you use your saw occasionally, don't do veggie. It will gum up if it sets for too long. I guess it's fine for commercial users, but probably not for the homeowner.
 
On a side note, I've been useing used motor oil for several years but I don't use it on pruning residential trees because it looks horrible on the fresh cuts. Also I don't run the saws full time so it may be bad on the saws if you are using them full time.
Used motor oil truly is HELL on the oil pump due to metal shavings, sludge,dirt,etc., but I refuse to use veggie oil just because of Al Gore and this green phase we seem to be going through, lotsa good old petro based oil to be used, (just doin my part to keep the drillers in business).
 
just for you.............................

There are both environmental and health reasons for running vegie oil. Also, in this day and age, if you need to ask why we should reduce our dependence on foreign oil, you should be riding to work in a short bus, and then led to your work site with a leash.
A properly sharpened and adjusted chain needs very little oil. I can run a tank or two with virtually no oil, before the chain tightens up. Then a few drops of oil, and it's good to go some more.
Typical homeowner types need gobbs of oil to keep things going. Think about a dull saw, a two hundred and seventy pound guy leaning on it with one hand, the other holding a beer, a cheese dog, and at the same time smoke pours out of the kerf.
How do you know if you suck at sawing? You claim an oiler is not fast enough, or you put a faster oiler on your saw (unless you're milling).
Yeah, sure, the reason the bar is smoking is because the oil isn't good enough...Rolleyes
Chew on this: A sharp chain, with proper angles, feeds and cuts with almost no friction on the bar. If you're pushing in the cut, smoking bars, and feel the need to turn up the oil adjuster past half, you suck.

i run petro and all my oilers are wide open!

chains are sharp though.


guess you better go back to polishing your destined to be worthless commemorative Obama coins.
 
madmax and fishercat, you both sound like a bunch of uneducated dumb lumberjacks. Why dont you post on a thread where you belong. Get a life dude! Do you know how bad drilling for oil damages the earth in places. What if people came in and cut down ALL the trees you guys work on just to drill and tear apart the earth leaving huge excavation sites in your backyard, WHEN IT IS NOT EVEN NEEDED! Its all just a scam now! And you guys buy into it. We could be running on sustainable energy easily! But you guys still buy it! What fools!

Try learning something new for once in your life instead of just regurgitating old ignorant comments you all just learned from your stupid role models because you think it sounds cool just to be haters! Why are you such haters!? Have you ever heard the comment, or are you just going to make a racist one now too! Haha.. Lol...
 
sorry but.......................

madmax and fishercat, you both sound like a bunch of uneducated dumb lumberjacks. Why dont you post on a thread where you belong. Get a life dude! Do you know how bad drilling for oil damages the earth in places. What if people came in and cut down ALL the trees you guys work on just to drill and tear apart the earth leaving huge excavation sites in your backyard, WHEN IT IS NOT EVEN NEEDED! Its all just a scam now! And you guys buy into it. We could be running on sustainable energy easily! But you guys still buy it! What fools!

Try learning something new for once in your life instead of just regurgitating old ignorant comments you all just learned from your stupid role models because you think it sounds cool just to be haters! Why are you such haters!? Have you ever heard the comment, or are you just going to make a racist one now too! Haha.. Lol...

i don't believe everything i read because it is fashionable.these so called greenies are making quite a pretty penny off these lies.you can believe whatever you want.it is your right as an American.same as it is mine to believe what i want.

the greenie libs also tell us how much damage humans do to the earth,yet they encourage and pay them to make more.go figure.they also vote for folks to fly around the globe in jets so they can preach to everyone else about their damaging carbon footprint.how nice it is that they are exempt. maybe if we are so bad you libs can move to the moon.give the planet a break from your carbon footprint and hot air.

when you walk everywhere and give up anything and everything made of dinosaur remains,i might think of listening to your gibberish.

now you can go back to making rainbow togas for the Barney Frank re-election campaign.
 
I'm not fan of Al Gore or some of the other green wannabes out there but I do believe letting all the trapped carbon into the atmosphere could possibly have a negative impact on the enivroment. Volcanos produce a tremendous amount of emmisions so it's not just humans alone that are doing all the polluting but when you drive into some of the big cities out west you can really see how much smog is being produced by us. When you see all that brown smog being produced everyday common sense tells you that it's probably not a good thing. Like smoking cigs 70 years ago before the Surgeon General said it was bad for you, common sense should tell you that inhaling smoke into your lungs might have a negative impact on your health. There is no way to trap that carbon and put it back into the ground, and with the reduction of rain forest, you lack the ability to trap that carbon into plants so it escalates the potential for there to be problems. However the good thing about housing that is made from lumber is that we trap that carbon into homes that will be around for 100 years so while we release a lot of carbon that was trapped in the ground, we at least are trapping some of it into the structures of the building. Biofuels are great and I think from a strategic military and security of the the United States point of view it's important that we have the ability to produce enough to keep military, farm equipment, and some transportation equipment running in the event we were to be cut off from petro fuels. Biofuels are also great because they are fairly carbon nuetral, but at the moment they can not produce enough per acre of feedstock (soy, rapeseed, canola, corn, switchgrass, etc, etc) to sustain even just our 10 million barrel a day transportation diet, let along the other 10 million barrel a day for manufactuering. Wind solar and other forms of energy are great as well but still thing like oil and coal are cheap so it doesn't do anybody any good if you go broke trying to be green. I think it's imporatant that we invest into alternative sources of energy but not to the point where we go broke doing it. I thought it was great that Bush invested 5 billion into alternative energy (more so then any President before him) and likewise I think it's great that Obama has been trying to push for more fuel effieceint cars. What Bush or Obama's motives are, I have no idea but I like to think that's it's sincere. I think we need to keep pushing ourselves towards a cleaner source of energy, but do so in a realistic manner and also be willing to let go of some of the new technology if it's just not proving to be beneficial. Personaly I think we are going at just right pace of investing/gambling (what ever it proves to be) and implementing some of the newer technology while still using cheap currant energy sources. That's just my view on the subject.

Also I know there are members from other countries on this website so I apologize when I say "we, us, our, etc, etc". I'm referring to other Americans when I wrote this post.
 
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I'm not fan of Al Gore or some of the other green wannabes out there but I do believe letting all the trapped carbon into the atmosphere could possibly have a negative impact on the enivroment. Volcanos produce a tremendous amount of emmisions so it's not just humans alone that are doing all the polluting but when you drive into some of the big cities out west you can really see how much smog is being produced by us. When you see all that brown smog being produced everyday common sense tells you that it's probably not a good thing. Like smoking cigs 70 years ago before the Surgeon General said it was bad for you, common sense should tell you that inhaling smoke into your lungs might have a negative impact on your health. There is no way to trap that carbon and put it back into the ground, and with the reduction of rain forest, you lack the ability to trap that carbon into plants so it escalates the potential for there to be problems. However the good thing about housing that is made from lumber is that we trap that carbon into homes that will be around for 100 years so while we release a lot of carbon that was trapped in the ground, we at least are trapping some of it into the structures of the building. Biofuels are great and I think from a strategic military and security of the the United States point of view it's important that we have the ability to produce enough to keep military, farm equipment, and some transportation equipment running in the event we were to be cut off from petro fuels. Biofuels are also great because they are fairly carbon nuetral, but at the moment they can not produce enough per acre of feedstock (soy, rapeseed, canola, corn, switchgrass, etc, etc) to sustain even just our 10 million barrel a day transportation diet, let along the other 10 million barrel a day for manufactuering. Wind solar and other forms of energy are great as well but still thing like oil and coal are cheap so it doesn't do anybody any good if you go broke trying to be green. I think it's imporatant that we invest into alternative sources of energy but not to the point where we go broke doing it. I thought it was great that Bush invested 5 billion into alternative energy (more so then any President before him) and likewise I think it's great that Obama has been trying to push for more fuel effieceint cars. What Bush or Obama's motives are, I have no idea but I like to think that's it's sincere. I think we need to keep pushing ourselves towards a cleaner source of energy, but do so in a realistic manner and also be willing to let go of some of the new technology if it's just not proving to be beneficial. Personaly I think we are going at just right pace of investing/gambling (what ever it proves to be) and implementing some of the newer technology while still using cheap currant energy sources. That's just my view on the subject.

Also I know there are members from other countries on this website so I apologize when I say "we, us, our, etc, etc". I'm referring to other Americans when I wrote this post.
Check out the politics forum, look at The earth is warming, and the earth is frigging cold threads, do your research on both I bet you have a totally different outlook when you come back, if your mind is truly open of course.
 
Check out the politics forum, look at The earth is warming, and the earth is frigging cold threads, do your research on both I bet you have a totally different outlook when you come back, if your mind is truly open of course.

I peeked into those threads. That's a lot of info that would take me awhile to go thru. From what I could tell just by taking a peek, my outlook is pretty much the same and yes I have an open mind. I'm pretty much right in the middle in my thinking but lean a little towards burning carbon has negative affects. Just because I'm not sold on one way or the other doesn't mean my mind isn't open to coming to a conclusion in either direction. I think it's smart to study the enviroment and our possible impact on it, come up with possible solutions just in case there are problems, and yet at the same time don't make rash decisions.


On your other post, I said I don't use the chainsaws full time and if I did I might have another outlook on using used motor oil. The other thing is that I owned a semi so every month I had 11 gallons of used oil laying around and had to find every little way to use it up, especially in the summer when I can't even give it away for free. Having said that, the oil filters on a vehicle do a pretty good job of collecting metal shavings. I guess my thinking is that if the oil filtration systems is good enough for a $5000 to $20,000 dollar engine that has very tight tolerances, then it's good enough for my chainsaws oil pump, bar, and chain.
 

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