Lard Oil or it’s modern day equvalent?

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

I have recently been experimenting with a “Shear Grind/Steel finishing” tool on both the lathe and Shaper, I took the design from two books Henry Burghardt’s book “Machine Tool Operation” & Karl Moltrecht’s “Machine Shop Practice”.

 

Both books mention (as do many other tomes) the use of Lard Oil as a cutting lubricant for steel finishing this not being available I have tried Sulphur based cutting oils, Suds, Parrafin, WD39 etc. with varying results.

 

I would like to try Lard Oil is there perhaps a modern version or some witches brew like it?

 

Regards

 

Paul

[_Paul_Participant @_paul_]

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

Bacon drippings do in fact work just like lard oil, but don’t let it get in your machine sumps – they will start to rot/go off and get nasty.

 

JD

[Jens Eirik Skogstad 1Participant @jenseirikskogstad1]

The lard oil will become rancid with time and can be difficult to clean if you let the oil stay in difficult places you can not reach. Use cutting oil/paste from workshop dealer.

[Geoff KParticipant @geoffk]

Here in Canada we can get “Buttercut” which works like a charm.

Geoff

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

After testing different oils, I use rapeseed oil. It cost next to nothing, does not smell, is not poisonous. And it does not have the label that almost all cutting oils have that tells you of all the bad things that can happen if you get it on your skin.

It also seems to be a quite good lubricating oil.

I have used the rapeseed oil on my mill and lathe both for aluminum, steel, cast iron and brass. I know you are supposed to cut cast iron and brass dry, but with oil it doesn’t fly all over the place.

 

Here in Norway I can buy rapeseed oil for about £1 per litre. That make it even cheaper than the cutting oils that can be diluted 10 to 1. Here that cost £14 per litre

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

I was also reading something by an “old master” a short while ago, who advocated the use of Tallow, over anything else, to ease tight fitting parts together eg pistons in bores. He said that he didn’t know why it worked but it always did. It had obviously stuck in my mind because I found myself in exactly this situation and fortuitously I had been given a big lump of tallow by a retired engineer……..it worked like magic. The writer also recommended tallow for threadcutting with taps and dies and again I confirm it works really well. Lard is rendered animal fat and so is tallow but what difference, if any I do not know. Fats can be dissolved in oils so I suppose that is what lard oil is. Tallow is obviously still available as I saw a carton of it in an Eon engineer’s toolbag……can’t remember what he said he used it for.

 

Mick

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

Tallow, flux for soldering lead. Ian S C

[The Merry MillerParticipant @themerrymiller]

During my early apprenticeship days all dead centres were lubricated with “tallow”, there were no live centres in those days.

 

I also use what are known as tallow candles for fluxing joints when I am creating a masterpiece out of stained glass and lead “came” (correct terminology).

 

Incidentally in the workshop, when making cutting tools out of tool steel, we did the quenching in “whale oil”.

 

Len P.

 

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

I know of one gun workshop which uses ordinary lard (from the supermarket) as a lubricant when reaming the chokes in shotgun barrels. It gives a very fine finish.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I think it was Sparey who recommended whale oil.

Apparently it’s a very good lubricant.

 

There may be a Japanese or Norwegian supplier who can help…

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

Does it really matter that much what cutting oil one uses?

 

I tested all the oils I could find in the house and garage. 10W-30 engine oil, 80W-90 gear oil. WD40, Olive Oil, cutting oil for dilution with water, Rocol RTD Cutting oil, Rapeseed oil and a thin ‘sewing-machine’ oil.

 

I really could not see any difference on the turning and milling results, so I ended up using the cheapest, which was Rapeseed oil. I is also not poisonous.

 

I like the fact that rapeseed was used to lubricate steam engines! It can’t be too bad for my lathe and mill then.

In an industrial setting with highest possible production, the high pressure additives and other qualities of the cutting oil might be important, and you get special oils for steel, alloy steel… But it seems to me that in the home workshop it makes little difference.

 

But I might be wrong

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Skarven….when I tried out vegetable oil…cannnot remember which type…. as a lubricant, it tended to form a skin when it dried out which I found difficult to remove and involved a strip down of topslide etc Do you find any problems of this sort with rapeseed oil?

 

Mick

Edited By mick H on 28/12/2011 15:44:09

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by mick H on 27/12/2011 08:18:35:

I was also reading something by an “old master” a short while ago, who advocated the use of Tallow, over anything else, to ease tight fitting parts together eg pistons in bores. ……………………..

 

…………..Tallow is obviously still available as I saw a carton of it in an Eon engineer’s toolbag……can’t remember what he said he used it for.

 

Mick

 

Hi Mick,

 

when I worked with the electricians while serving my apprenticeship we used tallow as a cutting medium when making threads on conduit tubes. It was solid until the heat generated by the dies melted it and I remember it particularly good lubricant and eased what could have been a difficult task. It also ensured a good finish on the thread which otherwise would have been very rough (don’t ask!) if cut without it.

 

Advantages? Possibly the fact that it was solid and easily transported at room temp and could be applied as a solid paste, it also seemed to have more lubricity than normal oils and as I said it certainly ensured a good finish to the thread.

 

Of course there are much more convenient, effective and less messy modern equivalents, but it seemed surprisingly good at the time.

 

As an aside, I tend to use modern high pressure PTFE based dry lubricants for slideways etc these days, it is less inclined to collect debris, is relatively long lasting, clings to metal surfaces and is clean.   I wouldn’t use vegetable oils as they tend to oxidise rapidly, as you found out.

 

Best regards

 

Terry

Edited By Terryd on 28/12/2011 21:04:16

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Interesting Terry…..I used to use a cutting and tapping paste which I obtained from Screwfix, for threading and found the solid form quite convenient to use. When I ran out I found that Screwfix no longer stocked the stuff (which had the same sort of consistency and even the smell of tallow). So I refilled the container/dispenser with tallow and get just as good results. I have a feeling that tallow was a constituent of the Screwfix paste.

[V8EngParticipant @v8eng]

I seem to remember hearing that whale oil was part of the fluid used in vehicle automatic transmissions, probably a synthetic these days.

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

Posted by mick H on 28/12/2011 15:43:36:

Skarven….when I tried out vegetable oil…cannnot remember which type…. as a lubricant, it tended to form a skin when it dried out which I found difficult to remove and involved a strip down of topslide etc Do you find any problems of this sort with rapeseed oil?

 

Mick

I haven’t seen any tendency to dry out or leave a residue at all. It seems to behave as a common motor oil. I have used it now for a few months, and have had no problems so far.

It is easy to remove from your hands with paper towel and acts more like ‘hand lotion’

I think the viscosity was somewhere between ISO32 and ISO46 hydraulic oil.

The fact that it was used as lubricating oil for steam engines should mean that it has some good qualities.

 

Castor oil (that is the US term, isn’t it) will leave a residue which can be difficult to remove, but I do not know if they are comparable. From Wikipedia: ‘However, castor oil tends to form gums in a short time, and its use is therefore restricted to engines that are regularly rebuilt, such as race engines.’

 

I will report back if I find any problems with the .

 

So far my problem with cutting oil is the mess, and the fact that tiny Aluminum chips are so light that they make the oil into a grey soup. They don’t fall to the bottom of the tank like the steel chips, and they can’t be removed with a magnet. I think I will make some kind of system with a circulation pump and a filter. Of course, this problem is probably not because of the rapeseed oil, but it could be caused by the relatively high viscosity.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

Sperm oil was much favoured lubricant, with one particularly useful proprty, it liquefies around body heat (it may be taht the whale uses this property to help control its bouyancy.

 

The problem with all organic and especially vegetable oils is a tendency to thicken as they oxidise with age (a speeded up version of what happens in your chip pan). I’d fear this happening with rapeseed oil. This is crertainly an issue with both castor oil (as you point out – i’m thinking of an uncleaned small aero engine…) and 3-in-1 (which contains veg oils).

 

I use neatcut or the cheap version from Machine Mart, which is a less ‘clean’ colour. Both work well and rather than using a special slideway lube I dabble a bit extra around with the toothbrush from time to time.

 

Neil

[TerrydParticipant @terryd72465]

Posted by V8Eng on 28/12/2011 19:30:01:

I seem to remember hearing that whale oil was part of the fluid used in vehicle automatic transmissions, probably a synthetic these days.

Hi,

 

We used whale oil as a quenching medium in the toolroom in the 60s. Not very pc these days! A lot of beautiful animals need to be killed to provide their bodily fluids.

Regards

 

Terry

[Jens Eirik Skogstad 1Participant @jenseirikskogstad1]

Posted by Skarven on 28/12/2011 13:22:16:

 

 

I like the fact that rapeseed was used to lubricate steam engines! It can’t be too bad for my lathe and mill then.

 

Hei/Hi Skarven and other folks in the forum..

 

Not rapeseed oil only in steam engine.

 

How to make good compound oil for steam engine:

1. Heat up the rapeseed oil (or fat oil either it is a animal oil or vegetable oil).

2. Blow up the rapeseed oil with pressure air to increase viscosity in the rapeseed oil.

3. Mix mineral oil (to example motoroil, also i am using motoroil 10W40 or 20W50 with good results) with 2%-25-% rapeseed oil together.

4. Ready to use

 

This oil is a compound oil who is difficult to press the oil out of between moving parts in high load. Rapesoil or fat oil will mix with water in smaller parts and still good lubricant in the steam engine cylinder. The oil has very good adhesion and will fasten to metalsurface without to wash out of surface by water/steam. The oil is difficult to remove from water hence the oil is not suitable to use in the steam engine with condensator.

 

Source about compound oil: Læren om skibsdampmaskinen ved E. Stahl, 1944 (The doctrine of the ship steamengine by E. Stahl, 1944)

[SkarvenParticipant @skarven]

It seems I have to be the testbed for rapeseed oil on this forum.

 

If it left some kind of residue like castor oil I would have seen it already.

I will try to filter the oil I have used and see if there is anything wrong with it.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

I always cook with rapeseed oil, it has less cholesterol than sunflower oil, but suffers something of an image problem. Rapa, by the way, is latin for turnip AFAIK.

 

Neil

[michael howarth 1Participant @michaelhowarth1]

Quite coincidentally, I was reading LBSC’s words and music for a loco build yesterday and came upon this…………..”A dose of cutting oil (eg “Houghtolard” and paraffin in equal proportions) or similar brand …….will walk through steel like a knife through cheese.” Is this the lard oil that Paul is seeking? What on earth is Houghtolard ?

[Richard ParsonsParticipant @richardparsons61721]

Lard oil You can still get it. Basically it is the lighter fraction of pig fat. The ‘oil’ can be extracted by part melting and filtering. There is a sort of discussion about it here.

I seem to remember Mr. ‘Two dog’ Jones who made tower clocks for churches etc. He lived in out village used it. He mixed it with a tiny amount of Thymol to stop it going rancid. He used with a brush.

I ues Mobil Dortan 25 in a drip flask.

Happy New Year to all

Rdgs

Dick

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

I’m not sure of its number, but I use a Mobil product on our vintage water turbine, it’s thicker than oil, but thinner than grease, the lubrication would have been with lard back in the 1880s when the machine was first installed. I also use the same in the plumber blocks that the shafts run in, they have a little trough on top, and were designed for lard oil. Ian S C

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