Used motor oil for bar oil??

Maybe you should start a poll with that question.
Something like -
Are you
A-Stupid
B-Ignorant
C-Both
Just a joke folks.

 

Don't think a poll is necessary.

But I still don't get it. I too am not a tree hugger, I actually have trees cut down for a living as a forester . But I collect all my old oil to recycle. If a half a quart gets on the ground changing oil or a spill i don't freak out and think the world will end, but it is contamination . I would not consider actually pouring out several quarts in a day on the ground so why would I want my say to spray it all over as I cut? Have you ever cut near pooled water or a creek or pond? Notice the sheen that occurs from just cutting near it, from the oil spray that you put out??

 

My neighbor uses used motor oil as bar oil religiously.

I don't believe he has ever had a saw last more than 8 months, and he buys them new.

Extrapolate from that what you will.

 

Not necessarily the used oil doing it, but could be, but might be more related to his care and maintenence of his items. Doesn't care enough to use bar oil, probably don't keep chains sharp or bring the saw in out of the rain etc.

 

So using the above reasoning, my bil has bought 2 Duramax, one lasted HIM 50,000 miles the other maybe 20,000
conclusion; Duramax are junk. (they are anyway compared to a Cummins)
As far as comparing a few ounces of chain oil being slung around to dumping used oil on the ground................well
all I will say about that is I hope every vehicle you own runs flawless, none of them drip anything, all of your power equipment is new meeting carb emissions and none of your combustion engines are modified in any way...........muffler mods, porting, etc.

 

I cannot remember the last time I bought bar and chain oil...at 8 bucks a gallon for the stuff, why would I?

A bar costs $40 bucks. There is no way a bottle of even the best bar and chain oil is going to save a bar...a chain dragging over a bar is just going to wear it out eventually. The return on investment for buying oil at $8 a gallon to save a $40 bar makes absolutely no sense. Considering just how many cords a bar can have on it before it is worn out just using used oil..., makes a bar a very inexpensive part of the logger equation.

Do the math, at $8 a gallon, you would only have to buy 5 gallons of bar and chain oil before you could have bought a new bar!! I got over 100 cords logged onto my new 461 Stihl and I would say the bar is nearing the halfway point at being worn out. Lets do the math on that...200 cord, divided by a $30 bar=that is 15 cents a cord in costs on running free oil.

Since I use about a 1/4 of a gallon of bar and chain oil per day, that means at $8 a gallon for the stuff, it would actually be cheaper for me to buy a new bar every 20 working days then buy bar and chain oil. Obviously I am working well beyond 20 days with my used oil. Put another way, every day past 20 days I am saving money using used oil.

Does bar and chain oil save wear and tear on a bar...absolutely, but its high cost does not justify its use. Its like spending $20 dollars to save a $1.

 

Your kind of missing the point. Sure oil is leaked out and burned. That's opportunity cost to our fossil fueled life. Right or wrong, nothing will operate as it was day one. But purposefully slinging used oil out is not being a good steward. I use upwards of 3 gallons a year in my saws. That would be like me pouring like 10-12 quarts of used oil on the ground after oil changes or leaking or burning that much!!. I have 1 ATav, 1 gas golf cart one tractor and 4 road vehicles and 1 farm truck. I don't leak/burn that much oil in all of them in like 3 years! Which is a drop in the bucket to what i see my loggers big trucks drooling out or leaking, or hrdro oil leaks, but that is what it is. But no point to put anymore than necessary out there.

Like I said some just don't get it.

 

I have said this many times, I am a forester, I over see harvest ooerations. I have loggers that move anywhere from 150 tons a week on the low side to about 1800 tons a week. NOT a ONE uses used oil. Not saying your business model is wrong, but there is a reason for this, could it be they don't have time to pour up used oil, could it be that it's illegal to use used oil (I don't know, maybe some EPA code officer could push this , I don't know?), or is it just the thing to do, I don't know but that's just how it is here .

 

Has anyone brought up the fact that either way your still slinging oil out on the ground? Neither one is "food grade". The miniscule amount I use I will never worry about it. But for pro loggers and foresters that's a different story, although I don't necessarily agree with either side but LodgedTree , like it or not brings up a valid point. It's all about the bottom line in a business setting.
That being said I use b&c oil. (A whopping gallon a year on average) But in a pinch I wouldn't even hesitate to use used oil.

 

I used to work in a small engine shop and I did all the Chainsaw work. I cannot tell how many times I had saws come in with the complaint the oiler was not working. I would remove the oil tank cap and look inside and all I could see was black oil. I knew right away is was used motor oil. Then I would smell it to confirm it. The tank would have to be flushed out and a lot of the times the pump would have to be replaced. So just saying. Some of the older saws may not be affected as much by using old engine oil but the newer ones are a different story. The oil pumps having moving parts and the contaminants in used motor oil will wear on those pumps over time.

 

I used to use new 30w oil, (drained the empty 55 gal drums at work)
Had several gallons . Ran out
Past few years , been issuing
Chainsaw bar oil, longer bar & chain life, less adjusting the chain tension.

Think it has STP ( or similar) additive.

Like the idea of longer chain, bar life
Watch for sales, buy then.

Not always about economics,
Individual Preferences.... Stewardship
Personalities, 9/16 wrench made for 9/16 bolt, vice grips will work

 

This is like the question of covering the wood pile or not covering. Opinions are very strong regarding the use of used motor oil for bar oil.

I have been using it for years and have not seen any increase in bar usage or wearing out prematurely. I honestly can't remember the last time I bought a bar for the saw....which, by the way, was bought in the mid 80's and still runs great! I think the last time I bought a bar for the saw was over12 years ago....maybe!

End result is, yes you can run used motor oil as bar lubricant with the same results as bar oil.

 

The rubber components sure don't like the solvents/detergents in engine oil especially used oil. New straight 30 likely won't hurt anything, but it still lacking the tack additives. If you look around you can find deals on bar oil, tsc usually has the best deal.

No benefits in running nasty used engine oil that I can see. Makes a mess, smells nasty, destroys the oil pump components, it's toxic, on top of all that it's a poor lubricant.

I also haven't seen a good bar go for $30 in a long time. Most decent bars for a larger Stihl or Husqvarna will be in the $100 range, and if you like quality or lightweight bars they can be $200+ depending on the make. Bars like Cannon, Sugi-Hara, Stihl ES, will last quite a long time if properly taken care of.

 

A lot of it is just plain availability. If you have used oil, run it, but for big hand felling operations, using as much s they need, is just going to be hard. Far easier to buy it at the store then gather up used oil all over the place. However what I bet you do not see is them using their used oil as bar and chain oil when they change the fluids in the equipment.

The other thing I have noted is that a lot of loggers do not crunch numbers, they cut wood. The smaller the operation, the tighter the profit margins and the more the numbers have to be worked over. Here everyone uses skidders and laughs at me and my Bulldozer/Forwarding Trailer combination, yet I burn 4 gallons of petroleum a day (bar oil/chainsaw gas/log trailer gas, and diesel for my bulldozer). A cable skidder alone consumes 5 gallons an hour. Yet when you counter their laughing with the fact that I am making more money per cord, they are quiet because they HAVE NEVER DONE THE MATH.

Logging, as with most businesses, do things because "that is the way they have always done them" with no real thought as to why. I am betting a lot of people reading this thread now have looked at bar and chain oil differently now that I have crunched the numbers for them.

 

Common misconception. Yes we use more oil because we cut more wood, but we are actually dispersing less of it into the ground because we are cutting wood over a much larger geographical area.

I have a friend who has 5 acres and manages to cut 3-4 cords of firewood off it per year. Now granted its not ideal hardwood, it is anything from a hemlock tree to sticks on his lawn, but he is very sustainable. Still, while only cutting 3 cord per year, he is limited to those 5 acres...year, after year, after year. How much is he putting down? Quite a bit because his wood cutting is done in 16 inch segments. Now if a person piles up their wood in the same place year after year and cuts their wood up there, even if they only use a gallon a year, where is that spray going? Don't think because it is high-tack it is still not being slung off...the tank goes dry for a reason! Granted a lot of if it flung off onto the next round of wood that will be burned over the winter, but over the years, some inevitably gets onto the ground.

In contrast, my woodlot is sustainable too in that I will never be able to cut all the wood off it either; it simply is growing back faster than I can cut. But it is dispersed over hundreds of acres. But because I am doing so over a broader area, I may not get back to that particular acre for another 10 years or more. So yeah I am consuming a 1/4 gallon per day, but it is over several acres and actually .000064 gallons per day since I won't be back in that spot for another 10 years.

But all this is splitting hairs.

As a farmer, I watch for heavy metal contamination a lot because sheep cannot tolerate copper over 4 parts per million (ppm). However cow grain is fortified with copper and zinc, so I have to watch those levels since our grass ground here is fertilized with liquid dairy cow manure. I am nearing the threshold, but do you know how many tons of liquid manure it has taken to reach that level? How many years of fertilizing with dairy cow manure? How many tons of copper and zinc are added to the cows grain that is fed? The amount in used oil is so minuscule that it would not even register in a soil sample, not to mention that heavy metals are present in the soil to start with. And of course the wondrous thing about forests are, not only do they provide renewable building products, a sustainable way to heat our houses, they also make incredible filters for our water sheds.

 

Cutting corners never really works in the end. Justification of doing something incorrectly or potentially illegal is simply bad business. With a little research bulk bar oil is available at very reasonable prices. There's no excuse for using/dumping used engine oil.

One must also look at the possibility of long term health effects from breathing the fine mist of this oil. As a younger man I thought most common chemicals like engine oil, fuel, and so on wouldn't have any effect. I'm tough, I can take it, how wrong I was. You're body has a set limit of how much crap it can filter out. When that cup gets full, any little thing will cause that cup to overflow, and you'll be sick. It's called multiple chemical sensitivity.