Polymerizing oil for Felix Lube question

[mpbarry1]

I cooked the mineral and castor oils according to the instructions from Wiljen last night. The temp was 300 degrees or more for 1 hour and 20 minutes. it did not scorch. Today, i see a amber/less amber separation line in the jar. Is this normal or do I need to put it back in the pot?

[wiljen]

Some have reported still having a visible layering without detrimental effect. I think as long as cooked thoroughly as you did, it will work fine.

And for the record, did we talk last night? Either I've slept since then or it was another day.

[mpbarry1]

Nope, but I sure wanted to talk to somebody about that process! lol. I had found your post from earlier on felix lube. BTW, it was a very good recipe. Thank you!

[geargnasher]

I've had it go both ways. If it separates, just reheat the batch to re-blend it and spoon off what you need for your current batch of lube. Pre-cooking the oils is a great time saver, and makes a more accurate batch since you start with the correct amount, rather than losing some to evaporation during polymerization.

Polymerization does not mean homogenization, so even if the oils separate, the castor fraction is sufficiently "cooked".

Gear

[nanuk]

has anyone figured out which layer is the good layer and which layer is the sacrificial layer?

[wiljen]

Theoretically speaking, the bottom layer should be the heavier of the two and thus the one of more value to the lube. However, there is no need to dispose of the other as mixing it back in and using it works equally well.

[Hip's Ax]

Once reheated and the Ivory melted in would it not cease to seperate?

[geargnasher]

I've never added Ivory to the "stock" batch of polymerized oils I keep on hand, so hard to say. Probably not.

Both oils are "good" oils, it's quite feasable to polymerize the castor by itself (do a google search on castor oil plastics), but I believe that the mineral oil provides some extra free hydrocarbons to help the castor strings link up. I studied mechanical engineering, perhaps someone who has a background in petroleum engineering might know more about the plasticizing process, including how to spell it!

If you skip the mineral oil and anything else in the lube that comes from petroleum, it isn't necessary to polymerize the castor, since the structure of the beeswax can suspend the extremely small castor oil chains with the help of a little stearate, but the lube has different properties, including a tendency to gunk up cylinder base pins after extended shooting. Skipping the mineral oil and the polymerization process is something I only did once, and it's finally all shot up.

Gear

[C.F.Plinker]

I mixed up my "stock" solution almost two years ago and it imcluded the Ivory soap. Since then it has settled out into two layers The bottom layer (about 3/8 inch) is thin and clear and about the color of light to medium maple syrup. The other layer is "frosty looking" and is the maple syrup color at the bottom and gradually changes to a white paraffin color at the top. This layer is about 1 - 5/8 inch high. This taller part has the consistancy of wax that has started to melt but still has a bunch of unmelted globules in it. I just tried stirring it and the clear part at the bottom mixed in but the color gradient from tan at the bottom to white at the top wants to stay that way.

My next step will be to put it in a pan of hot water and see what happens.

[fryboy]

i tried intensive oil cooking , everything from lab grade to generic grade and every time i got separation ( did i mention i have a bunch of pre-cooked oil lolz ) i even cooked one batch for 3 hours , after spooning out the amount needed and mixing with everything else ( including either ivory or stearic acid ) they all passed the "leave in the hot window bleed out test" , today the temp was 108 F ( + .7 but who's to quibble ) the sealed spot inbetween the windows gets even hotter . main thing is shake it up good before measuring it out so you get the correct amount of both IMHO

[Hip's Ax]

Hmmm, maybe this is why the results vary. Apparently Castor Oil is a specific material and Mineral Oil is not. From Wikipedia...

"A mineral oil is any of various colorless, odorless, light mixtures of alkanes in the C15 to C40 range from a non-vegetable (mineral) source, particularly a distillate of petroleum.

The name mineral oil by itself is imprecise, having been used to label many specific oils over the past few centuries. Other names, similarly imprecise, include white oil, liquid paraffin, and liquid petroleum.

Most often, mineral oil is a liquid by-product of the distillation of petroleum to produce gasoline and other petroleum-based products from crude oil. A mineral oil in this sense is a transparent, colorless oil composed mainly of alkanes [1]and cyclic paraffins, related to petroleum jelly (also known as "white petrolatum"). It has a density of around 0.8 g/cm3.[2] Mineral oil is a substance of relatively low value, and it is produced in very large quantities. Mineral oil is available in light and heavy grades, and can often be found in drug stores."

[runfiverun]

mineral oil is a cousin like a direct cousin to parraifin.
you get less or more parrafin depending on where the crude oil comes from.
pennzoil from pennsylvania is a lighter sweeter crude and don't contain much parrafin.
now quaker state not so much from penn, has a higher parrafin content.
parrafin will occur naturally in petroleum production and can actually cause build up so severe that it will stop production.
all crude oils are not created equal, and their hydrocarbon content can vary, thats why even though there is oil in a place it might not be the best grade nor sometimes even feasable for making motor fuels or even motor oil.
many are better suited for making road tar,plastics,paints,nylons,rubbers, etc from.

we used to have a former refinery engineer here but he done got hisself banned again.

[btroj]

Depends too upon what you actually buy. Baby oil is generally much thinner than mineral oil as sold as a laxative.
Now the 1 million dollar question- does the lube care which one you use? I have used both and didn't seem to matter at all.

[MDF99]

I set my hot plate on the drill press and chuck up a long allen wrench to stir the oil. For this batch I used a quart of CVS mineral oil and a pint of castor oil from "www.thesage.com". After 1.5 hours at 300-325 I had separation after it sat all night.

[geargnasher]

MDF, is that a chamber pot? Neat idea, BTW.

Gear

[MDF99]

Thanks for the laugh gear! Yeah, that pot does double duty at my bedside....

[MikeS]

The sad thing is, in a few more years, It'll be hard to find anyone that knows what a chamber pot is, or what it's (supposed to be) used for. I'm pretty sure if I asked my daughter if she knows what a chamber pot I would get a negative answer. Along those lines, I wonder how many other things have become things that we don't know about anymore?

[largom]

The sad thing is, in a few more years, It'll be hard to find anyone that knows what a chamber pot is, or what it's (supposed to be) used for. I'm pretty sure if I asked my daughter if she knows what a chamber pot I would get a negative answer. Along those lines, I wonder how many other things have become things that we don't know about anymore?

How about corn cobs in the out house?

Larry

[Hip's Ax]

How about corn cobs in the out house?

Larry

Or the Sears catalog.

[Wayne Smith]

Sears catalog in the two holer and chamber pots in the bedrooms for the winter. Does get cold in the outhouse in an unheated shed!