I was back in my home town this past weekend and stayed with my lifelong friend, Chris. He does machine repair and maintenance work for the machine shop I used to own. He presented me with two 5 quart jugs of reclaimed way oil, which is perfect for bar oil. Way oil is the lubricant for the ways of lathes and mills and is designed for lubricating sliding metal surfaces and has a tackifier to make it cling (sound familiar?). The oil ultimately runs down into the coolant sump, contaminating the coolant, encouraging the growth of bacteria and causing the coolant to stink and degrade. Skimmers are used to remove the oil (and a little of the coolant), which is usually hauled off as waste oil. Chris has been working on a process to separate it from the residual coolant and has succeeded in getting it clean enough that it just smells like oil instead of a combination of foot funk and a woman with personal hygiene problems. He is currently producing about 2-3 gal. per week of clean oil, and is having problems finding takers. I'm going to see what I can do.
If it's like the skimmers that I am familiar with....... any heavier material will settle out and this petroleum product will float on top and be skimmed from top surface. Shouldn't be an issue. Sent from my Z832 using Tapatalk
This is correct. The tramp oil from the skimmers is poured into the first of four 5 gal settling buckets with drain valves in the bottom. After settling for a few days, the sludge is drained and the oil moved to the next bucket. By the time it leaves the last bucket, the oil is quite clean.
Interesting! I work in a machine/weld shop and never thought of that. A gallon lasts me 6 months or more, I'd be set for quite some time at 2-3 gallons a week he should find a couple logging boys to sell/give it to.
Given that shops have to pay to get rid of their waste oil, it's a win-win. He's in the Great Central Valley of California, lots of farming but not much logging (or firewood cutting) going on there. I, on the other hand, am in the mountains, where there is a lot of both. I'm already finding new friends.
Bringing free anything to anyone makes a lot of friends fast Glad to hear it'll go to good use! Reduce reuse recycle right?
If there is metal in it, you can check with a magnet. Any metal that doesn't stick to the magnet is probably too soft to matter. My bar oil source is from work - we use a high-tack preservative oil to ship our gearboxes. At some point it gets dirty enough with other stuff that we dump it. My boss cuts a lot of wood and he took home a 55gal drum last week.
