Machinist

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Canola Oil for a lube?
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/general/canola-oil-lube-275676/

read the whole thread for maximum benefit

upshot: bio lubes and coolants are OK

Forrest Addy writes:

Political slants and environmental posturing aside, most organic oils and fats make good metal to metal lubricants. However they oxidize over time, subject to rancidity, and attract vermin. They may or may not be safe for human consumption depending on how long they're been in service and what they've picked up along the way.

Plant and animal oils and fats were in use as lubricants for thousands of years. It wasn't until the turn of the 19-20th Century that effective petroleum based lubricants came on the market. Uncompounded mineral oils are not that effective as machine lubricants. Petroleum based oils and greases have been compounded to perform as well as plant and animal oils and fats not the other way around.

Some seed oils if exposed to high heat may later under certain circumstances promote spontaneous combustion; a similar reaction to when loosely wadded rags damp with boiled linseed oil paint products rest for a few hours in a confined space. Safety awareness on this point needs to be promoted - a neglected rag in the chip pan over the week-end, etc

I suggest anyone compelled to use bio-friendly lubricants give the stuff a fair trial and be vigilent for accelerated wear, pick-up and galling, rancidity, varnishing, signs of vermin (you seldom encounter a housebroken rodent), odor, etc. If it works OK. If not OK. The product got a fair shot and passed or failed on its merits not some a$$hole's biases.

Anyway, salad oil makes a good general purpose coolant. A local job shop used it in their automatics, threaders, and turret lathes back when drums of the stuff were cheaper than drums of cutting oil. He went back to petroluem based stuff when the price was right and he needed to re-stock.