Oil Topics

[deronmoped]

All the competition left the gasoline market with all the added requirements for running a gas station. Back in the day there used to be tons of gas stations, independents and majors, now there is pretty much only major retailers. The price does not vary much from gas station to gas station, maybe a few cents. They even used to clean your window and check your tires and oil, can you believe it?

Plus I do not think they have built a new refinery in decades. Supposedly we have been getting more and more gasoline refined out of country and shipped in. More jobs lost to other countries.

Deron.

[Reid Welch]

"Oil Topics"

OK, the economics have been pretty well covered.
The topic is all-inclusive.

How is oil composed and then de-composed for mankind's needs?

How does oil lubricate.

What is "cracking"?

Is petroleum oil very much oily? Or is bacon grease superior in that department?
Why not lubricate with castor oil or animal fats, only?

What are, and why do synthetic oils exist. Who do we have to thank for synthetic oils?

What engine was famed for running perfectly fine on racid, unsalable, liqufied butter?

How long has an IC engine seen continuous service without wear-out of any of its parts?

How do oils in such engines operate to prevent wear? By oiliness?

Google Book Search (choose "full view only) contains all the books with all the answers, nearly.
Synthetic oils can be researched by simple google search.

What is a "fixed oil"?

What is hydrodynamic lubrication?
Why do most all sizable IC engines contain an oil pump, but small engines rarely are so-equipped?
What is "splash lubrication"?

====

Any answers win respect for learning things on your own and not relying on hearsay alone or,
"gosh, it's just slippery stuff and I hate Arabs too."

[nutsandvolts]

.

[Reid Welch]

Q. Considering that I haven't bought any oil or gas since July 2008, how much petroleum have I consumed?

Kudos. You have bought no processed, transported food, no manufactured goods, nothing from china. You live deep in the woods and when the sun goes down,
it is a long, black night. You burn wood, perhaps, to keep alive and to cook with. You leave a carbon footprint. You exhale. Yet, kudos for NOT buying liquid petroleum to run an SUV to the corner store.

What about the average person?[/quote]http://www.google.com/search?q=average+oil+consumption+per+person&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a


----
A 'fixed oil' is any non-petroleum oil, 'fixed' because it cannot be distilled into fractions or "cracked" into other forms.

Without petroleum residuals, we'd have no asphalt pavement or roofs other than clay or thatched straw, wood, etc.

The longest continuous running engine is no longer in daily service. Obsolete, today, of course:
the high speed engine supplanted this type. It ran on the very gas it pumped from the ground,
for distribution to gas-lit homes and gas-engined factories. Most likely, my guess, also for pumping municipal water or irrigation water, both. It does not work on gasoline. The fuel it produced was piped indefinite distances if needed.
But it is sworn that for fifty years it was never stopped:
.

This 600 hp Gas Engine at the Western Minnesota Steam Thresher's Reunion show in Rollag, MN (rollag.com) runs every Labor Day Weekend.
Built in 1914-15 by the Snow Holly Works Schenectady NY, it ran continuously for over fifty years compressing natural gas at National Fuel Gas Corporation's Roystone Station near Titusville, PA

The engine is 65 feet long and weighs 140 tons. It's foundation is up to 10 feet thick, and contains 157 cubic yards of concrete reinforced with 8000 feet of steel bar.

It has four combustion chambers with a bore and stroke of 24" x 48" giving it a displacement of 86,856 cubic inches (1,423 Liters).
Produces 600 HP at 80 RPM.
Flywheel is 18 feet in diameter and weighs 24 tons
Crankshaft is 16 inches in diameter and weighs 12 tons.
This engine ran at full power 24/7 for over fifty years without a single mechanical failure. The engine still runs as good as new and not a single part has ever needed replacement.
The engine is one of four built.

______________

Miami's former Royal Palm Ice Company, site today of a Walgreen's Drug Store,
never changed: erected in 1919, oil powered diesels churning ammonia-cycle refrigerating equipment.
Block Ice our specialty. Also chipped, shaved, cubed. When it was to be closed down in the late 70's,
the local paper did a retrospective, touring the plant, interviewing one of the original employees:
"24/7" I was there for almost forty years before retirement. We always had one or more of the engines running.
We never made ANY repairs to the engines." (I paraphrase from thirty year-ago memory.)
All was scrapped, destroyed, and not even motion pictures remain. Thank Victor Posner, local suction cleaner of obsolete businesses, who heartlessly destroyed much of Miami's past.

++++++++++++++++++++

PS: Royal Palm Ice Co. was situated at the corner of SW 37th Ave and US1, just across the street from the black Grove. It was a source of quiet wonder to me, even in my youth: there sets a business, looking EXACTLY as it did in 1919, stucco-sided, sliding wooden doors, loading ramps for the trucks, stairs for the walk-in retail cusomers. Cream paint, kelly green trim ROYAL (palm tree image) ICE COMPANY.

Now I go there to buy chinese throw blankets, sandwiches and employee sour attitude, chewing gum, cigarettes, and hear nothing of the sixteen ton diesel engines, no pounding, except of customers begging with fists, on the check out countertops. All in all, Walgreens is a far better business. But Royal Palm: it would have been a tourist draw supreme, pride of all Miami, for her tourists to wonder and see the past,
alive and working and selling ice to our fishermen on Saturdays, out for a day on the sparkling bay.

[Reid Welch]

I've taken the thread from its last author's purpose: he is practically off the grid.
KUDOS!!!!!!!!!!!

I de-track every thread, it seems. I am a fucking asshole.
Recycled Henny Youngman joke (google him);

"Somebody, help me, please: I'm a fucking asshole!"



Back to oil. It is a great preventive of skin friction injuries;
I know these things by rote and by what goes 'round.

___________________________

this is a PPS, really:

yes, reid welch is two things. one of about only two of ES's real-named members,
and the only openly-gay member of this board. Why? I like my name and no one else does.

[nutsandvolts]

.

[Reid Welch]

But, as shown here petroleum is not just used for fuel."

Vaseline!!!!!!!!!

What do I win for being so smart? Nuts? OTAY!


Buckwheat, twisted

[Mr. Mik]

Buckwheat, twisted

You lost me there!

Back to the oily bits:

I'd like to make a point and replace the 80ml of oil in the gearbox of my Vectux with something other than petro-chemicals...

Hopefully I will not have to resort to "research whaling" to find an oil that's up to the task!

Only 80ml are needed to fill the planetary gear box, so price is not thaaat important.

A commonly used oil which would most likely meet the requirements would be Castrol Optigear Synthetic X http://www.castrol.com/liveassets/bp_in ... _Range.pdf

What gets closer to meeting it's specs: "Virgin" olive oil or "Extra light"?

Or what else gets close?

I'm serious, if anyone can come up with a reasonable explanation of why a certain renewable lubrication product would work in the Vectrix Planetary Gear Box, I'll put it in there and report how it goes!

UNTIL WE KNOW WHICH OIL WOULD WORK, STOP BURNING ALL THAT OIL, EVERYONE! I MIGHT NEED ANOTHER 80 OR 160ml IN THE NEXT FEW YEARS OF COMMUTING!

[liposuctionguide]

Great news! A massive reduction in oil (and other fossile fuel) consumption is exactly what is needed. The sooner it happens, the less catastrophic the consequences.

[Reid Welch]

Dear Mr. Mik,

I lose everybody sooner or later, you see. All the clocks here (about one hundred and fifty) chime different hours of the day. This is why I never sleep but in two hour snatches
(meant in the socially-correct way: for free).
----

OIL, god (are you exisiting), I do know my oils. Any synthetic oil (thank you, Nazi Germany) of the correct viscosity, with similar anti-scuff additives to the original type used (any synthetic will do), will do fine.

But say it is 1916 and we had no synthetics. And your Vectric gearbox ran only at low speeds and only in warm weather:
there is but ONE non-petro oil to use then: Pure castor oil: the oiliest, most stable of all the "fixed oils";

Detroit Electric was positively adamant that the user use NO OTHER sort of "gearbox" oil or grease for their $$ worm drive rear axle. And never change the oil. And if it leaks, add only pure castor oil.

The oil in my then-seventy year old, decades-idle Model 80-something (the dual drive),
was sweet, clear, fresh as if it had been in a bottle of time. I did not run the car.
I did not replace what was known to work. Even the batteries (edison alkaline) were all right up to snuff,
needing only water and a recharge and re-do of the connectors, which had corroded from alkali exposure.

ANY SYNTHETIC.

RULE: THE faster the speed, the lower the viscosity.
Automatic transmissions use the lightest-bodied oil for several reasons;
Slow-running gigantic ship direct-drive in-line diesels, use a heavier bodied oil.
Neither type of unit need ever wear out. Synthetics are grand, not for environmental purposes,
but because they provide superior "boundary lubrication".

-----
Font, more fonting: what is the right way to dispose of your used motor oil?
Ans: pour it on the ground, spread it about. Bacteria eat oil. Oil is natural.
It is mother's nature way of proving that we all die and decompose...or age well if kept in shale.


Well. Take care. My fingers are slipping on the keys. Rod wax. Look up Rod wax.
What is rod wax? It's a perfectly wonderful story of a useless, troublesome nasty,
made into one of the most useful products, ever, from petroleum.

Oil is not bad nor good. Oil =is= the environment, and the environment actually eats used oil for lunch.
It is similarly safe to pour cyanide solution right into the ground, once you de-activate it with chlorine bleach.

With massive oil spills or contaminated ground, such as from old service stations,
the correct and practical way to clean the ground: fill the ground with water.
Set up jet-spray pumps and spray the pump-out of water and oil into the air.
Bacteria have a field day. The oil fertilizes the ground. The grass is green;
fed by its ancient incarnation, oil, and the sun doth continue to shine.
------
Make social protests by refusing to wear underwear.
Tell total strangers "I save ten barrels of oil per year.
I wear only jeans and wash them every day, instead of forcing the manufacture and washing
of your BVDs, chump. I use a corrugated washboard, soap I make from wood ash, water, a sieve,
with the fat coming from Rendered Burglar, a wood fired kettle. I pump my water by wind power:
I talk it out of the ground. I am so green, again, I must cite Robin Hood: men in tights RULE



----
spilling correction only

[Reid Welch]

The Skipper's father plays Little John.
The only oil they used was mutton fat for candels.
It is a wonderful movie all about ebiking in 1190!
Please enjoy it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfFVwAD248A

-----

Of all the veggie oils, only two or three were of the least use in machinery:
rape seed oil for light duty spindles such as sewing machines.
olive oil (less good an oil, but used by every cotton mill because it would wash out of the thread or fabric)
castor oil: the most oily of all vegetable oils, chemically stable, heavy, clear, nearly like a synthetic oil.

All the fixed oils, however, eventually oxidize, partially or completely dry, if operated in the open air.
Petroleum oil is less oily than castor oil, which is why all the early radial engined airplanes ran on castor oil, only: no other oil could withstand the severe service. Castrol brand came to be, in part because their engineers discovered a process by which to marry castor oil with mineral oil: quite a trick, as the two will not normally mix: they are non-polar to each other.

Never use animal oil, though mutton tallow and bacon grease are superb for axle grease-making,
they go rancid in a short while, becoming acidic, eating slowly at machined metal.
But what loads they would carry.

Q: what oils did early steam engines and such use before the 1859 discovery of petroleum as a lubricant and fuel?

A: animal fats, mostly. Some engines lasted many decades in service, but their oils were regular washed out and renewed.

---
The world's oldest, operating engine:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwD6e4HgYB8

----

I tear because there is nothing evil about combustion engines, per se.
Here, the boiler is a modern replacement, from about the year 1899, when the original boiler failed safety inspection.
The working pressure? Less than two atmospheres.

Sadly, the present boiler is near the end of its service life.
The oldest engine will cease working.
There is no money by which to buy/make a new boiler,
though, to the credit of the English, there ARE new, young, eager men,
who would gladly make, gratis, a new boiler when the time comes.
They are the locomotive restoration volunteer engineers of the past.
They have a trade school for this dead art.
I have met a few of them at the old toy steam forum, check out:
http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/index.php
Wonderful, smart people, big kids every one of them. Just like us.
------
James Chantry, creator, may be twenty now. He founded from a vacuum of nothing, his forumwhen he was but fourteen.
Get to know those fine people: salt of the earth, intelligent, industrious, aged and saged, from ten to eighty.

They are all as dedicated to their calling as you are to your perfectly selfless, admirable,
"I use no oil" philosophy", good people of Sherwood.

James wears a flat cap, raises sheep, and will not wear a wrist watch,
nor light his room at home at night but by the light of kerosene. His computer is mains powered for now.
It is he, and his rare ilk, who keep the last vestiges of Britain's great, human-saving past, alive.
-----

The efficiency of these things is so low as to be nearly incalculable:
Watt would not go to high pressure steam.

Lovely, sad, humans, fire and water. Forever? Nearly so, just so. And mere young men in flat caps,
fighting to save old locos and boiler chimneys that once blighted the English landscape.
Bless them for works well done for our posterity.
I want to hug Green, at least some of it. Red is where its at, just don't let the boiler get red on its bottom.

===
edit: forum url added. go there. say hello. find a wonderful, winter hobby you can enjoy in doors,
that will make you a better mechanic. I will now show you the cheapest toy steam engine ever produced,
a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMi0HLmh2DI
WATCH THIS IN HQ. I MADE IT THIS VIDEO

[Reid Welch]

Meet Fred Dibnah. I recognized his name at the finish of the aforementioned video above.


Fred was many things, but most of all, a reluctant undertaker. See enough of his youtube videos and you will understand this northshire man. He is the idol of the young steam engineers, though what he did was to kill the steam engine's very heart, often as not. Somebody had to do the dirty work.

Steeplejack. You have no testicles by comparison.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_DAEwSM ... re=related

The hell with oil, carbon and other foo-foo nonsense; this is coal, sulfur, men, death, sweat, prosperity,
world power, and times, changed.

[Reid Welch]

OIL TOPICS, it says.


My young men friends were incredulous at the toy steam forum.
I always heard his first name, but knew not any more than that.

"You don't know who Fred was? He is our god, nearly; nearly as close-as."

Many of them traveled hundreds of miles, lads, some of them, to meet and be with Fred,
and to form this living link to works made one hundred twenty or one hundred fifty years ago.
Somebody had to finish their great plans. Fred was...

Here is the last job. Cry for old England, men, blood, now about all gone, fearless,
and Fred was not only the nation's past-master, but the only one who carried on as if there were
no camera there capable to take images of what he did and saw and felt in his truest heart,
always honest, humble and Fred Dibnah, RIP, dead of time's natural causes, only.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=945T56Zx ... re=related
Watch this and tell me you hate oil and coal?
Huggers of the low ground, go live in the green woods and eat raw chestnuts.

[Mr. Mik]

Reid, thank you very much!
This is all very interesting stuff indeed.

My father kept claiming that the grass around the oil-dripping bin behind the Mercedes garage was greener, and that it had been dripping for decades, and that he dug in to have a look and that he found that the oil had only penetrated 10 or 20 cm deep, below which he found rich soil full of worms. But he was a bit prone to exaggeration at times....

That Castor oil is most interesting! The plant is declared a weed throughout Australia and supposedly grows around where I live. The oil has multiple uses for food, medicines and industry!
And:

"The lubricants company Castrol took its name from castor oil".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castor_oil

Most interesting, indeed!

How come you say any synthetic oil will do?

And how do these synthetic oils behave in the environment? Are they also biodegradable like petrochemicals?

[Reid Welch]

Thank you, Mr. Mik. Whilst you composed, I cried and remembered old-young friends.
This is my first posting there in nearly two years. I wonder, will they care?

http://modelsteam.myfreeforum.org/sutra ... php#345866