Do you use bar oil in your chainsaw?

[PrecisionMachinisT]

IIRC, "Beano" is an enzyme.......

FWIW, home distillers ( moonshiners ) are reporting it being as effective as malt in converting ( hydrolizing ) complex starches into simple sugars.

Potatoes or corn, some yeast and "Beano", and you got yourself some mash....thinking this also works at a lower temperature than the amalyse ( sp ) too.

===

Back to the oil--always seems to dissappear within a year or so from my gravel drive, and I find it hard to believe its all being washed away by the rain...

In fact, many municipalitys are now requiring a "grassy swale area" in order that any oily runoff from parking lots, subdivisions, and other such largely paved-over areas be allowed time in order to bio-process before the water leaches back into the soil in recharging the local aquifer.

[cowboy]

You are spreading carcinogens to the little forest creatures who might come and lick the stump that has used motor oil on it.

Not to mention getting cancer yourself by handling used oil.

being a horse's ass is better than being a DUMBASS

[dean]

THe OP (me) asked about NEW engine oil, not USED.

[George]

Well, a field expedient, or maybe for folks who beat up a bar so bad so fast that it's not important, like limbers.

However, bar oils are formulated differently even for summer and winter to try and hit that happy place where it carries well enough to lubricate, while having the good sense to get out of the way with its burden of dirt when the chain runs fast and free.

I'm in hardwood country, and in the days before harvesters it was really tough to find someone who didn't use bar oil, or respect the tool that brought him his livelihood well enough to spend the four bucks per gallon. Bubba in the pineywoods might have enough waste oil in the junkers in his front yard to cut for a couple of days, but it just doesn't make sense for someone earning a living with his saw to scrounge dirty oil.

[George]

Well, no. Mostly that's to allow the runoff from storms to get into the ground rather than the sewers. You get fined for excessive flow of untreated sewage from your plant, and a storm overloads the system fast.

Not sure how it passed, but "environmentals" being the noisy folks they are, there was an ordinance up in the city that newly-constructed lots had to have "plantings" and grassy areas rather than just flat asphalt.

Now consider an average snowfall of ~200" and cars dripping with great salt stalactites. Not a lot grows around the lot, and it's tougher'n hell to get a plowing pattern to clear snow around the aesthetically pleasing curbs....

[George]

"There are only a handful of B-29's left, out of over 4,000. Somehow nobody realized it until it was too late. At one time the Arizona desert was covered with B-29's, some flown in and in good condition. They were all scrapped. "

Confederate Air Force brought a 29 and a 17 out for static display when I was stationed in California. Together they had one tenth the hours of the

52 parked nearby. And it was one of the "young" ones, not an old hog like the D.

[Garrett Fulton]

And if Bullshit was music, you'd be a brass band, tough guy. You're exposed to several orders of magnitude more carcinogens by just breathing the exhaust from the chainsaw. But I guess you go to the woods with a medical compressor and respirator. Typical environmental whacko. Not enough sense to pour piss out of a boot.

Garrett Fulton

[Vic Dura]

It's not a question of dirty/used oil lubricating as well as new oil. It's a question of weather the used oil lubricates sufficiently for the needs of a chain saw bar/chain.

[Doug Miller]

I generally try to avoid sticking the tip of my chain saw into the dirt.

Apparently you're not as careful with yours.

[George]

What do you do, pressure wash the bark? Or does the wind not blow and carry where you live?

[Duane Bozarth]

Doug Miller wrote: ...snip...

Can't you see we're mostly simply pulling your "sky is falling" chain??? :)

[Doug Miller]

No, I try to avoid sticking the tip into the dirt. Like I said.

[Duane Bozarth]

....

They flew a 29 out here for display and even a few sightseeing flights over Memorial Day. There was a large pilot training base here in the war. Silos on the farm were a landmark for return lineup for landing. One fella' who flew them and was trainer here took a turn and retraced his old path--discovered we'd had to take the silos down. I happened to be out when he flew over at about 150 ft or so.

[Duane Bozarth]

PrecisionMachinisT wrote: ....

The area where we drained oil from tractors and trucks from as far back as the 20s until toughly the 70s or 80s is now covered in grass and is indistinguishable from that area surrounding it...when I was a kid it looked like almost like a paved road. It's broken down pretty well. Not a smart thing to have done, certainly, and I suspect a soil sample would show some residual, but certainly doesn't appear permanent....

[Doug Miller]

I'm not sure what you think you read. I never said anything beyond stating what is, or should be, self-evidently obvious: that new oil is a better lubricant than used oil, and that oils specifically formulated for a particular purpose are better suited to that purpose than oils which are not.

[Duane Bozarth]

I read your typical reaction to a suggestion...

[Doug Miller]

Then I'm at a total loss to understand where you thought you read that the sky is falling.

[Elmo]

As I understand it, the problem is not so much what it does to the soil that it leaches through as what it does to the water table when it gets down there.

[Duane Bozarth]

Doug Miller wrote: ...

It's the logical characterization by extension of your absolute position which is repeated on a myriad of subjects...

It's not that the statements themselves are strictly incorrect (yes, new oil more lubricating than old, and yes, what is entrained in used oil isn't a lubricant), it's that you tend to apply the principle to the extreme where, in this case, the lubrication reqm'ts are so minimal and the inevitable introduction of extraneous dirt and grime makes carrying on over using virgin lubricant specifically tailored to the purpose such overkill as to invite parody...

That help? :)

And, btw, most of the loss of function in motor oil isn't the oil, per se, it's the breakdown of the additives that are there specifically for the high-temperature/high-pressure conditions of an engine--conditions not at all prevalent in the application here.

[Duane Bozarth]

Certainly where there is either a pathway or the underground aquifers are surface-replenished, that's an issue. Here the aquifer is not surface-renewed at any significant rate at all, and while there are areas where surface contamination can penetrate (abandoned unplugged oil/gas wells being the prime culprit), there aren't any of those in this particular location.

Not justifying what was (although common in the time) a poor choice, simply noting it does appear that a great deal of recovery has occurred in a relatively short time since the action ceased....