Fuel mixture.

cena

Can I use car oil to add to the petrol in a chainsaw.. Brother has a small bit left over.

reilig

cena wrote: »

Can I use car oil to add to the petrol in a chainsaw.. Brother has a small bit left over.

Noooooooooo!!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

You will cause untold damage to the engine. Use only specific 2 stroke oil oil and mix it to the spec which is usually imprinted on the cap of the fuel tank of your chainsaw. eg 50:1

You can use the car oil for lubricating your chain if you really want to get rid of it.

jay gatsby

Just as a follow on to this, I recently bought a strimmer and the guy I bought it from said that he always recommends 100 ml to 4 litres petrol now because a lot of the oil is not as good as it once was.

I have always used the 1 bottle to exactly 5 litres rule. Any theories on this? Maybe its rubbish.

johngalway

jay gatsby wrote: »

Any theories on this?

Yes, find out and follow the manufacturers recommendation and don't mind the bush rumours.

jay gatsby

Yeah that's what I did but he threw in a big bottle of a mix I hadn't seen before so was wondering if different oils work better at slightly more or less than recommended dose. He wasn't a spoofer either, it was genuine advice. Will prob just stick with the oil I've always used at the ususal dose rate.

cjpm

reilig wrote: »

Noooooooooo!!!! :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:


You can use the car oil for lubricating your chain if you really want to get rid of it.

Not the best advice I was told as the car oil isn't thick enough. You need a heavier grade so it will cling to the chain a bit.

brian_t

cena wrote: »

Can I use car oil to add to the petrol in a chainsaw.. Brother has a small bit left over.

You often need to top up your engine oil between services.

pakalasa

cjpm wrote: »

Not the best advice I was told as the car oil isn't thick enough. You need a heavier grade so it will cling to the chain a bit.

Have to admit, I use old engine oil myself. It doesn't have the same 'cling' propertise, I know. Seen a guy recently have a small container of the oil and he used a paintbrush to rub on some oil directly to the chain, each time before he started. Tip from a tree surgeon, he said.

Bizzum

pakalasa wrote: »

Have to admit, I use old engine oil myself.

Burnt oil?

Finnt

jay gatsby wrote: »

Just as a follow on to this, I recently bought a strimmer and the guy I bought it from said that he always recommends 100 ml to 4 litres petrol now because a lot of the oil is not as good as it once was.

I have always used the 1 bottle to exactly 5 litres rule. Any theories on this? Maybe its rubbish.

Apparently the stihl and husky genuine oil is a semi synthetic oil and some of the cheaper oils are mineral oils and need to be mixed at a ratio greater than 50:1 for the sake of a couple of pence stick with the stihl or husky oils!
As for using burnt oil as chain oil that s**t is cancerous! Apart from not been great for the bar and chain

cena

So would motor cycle 2 storke oil work. Its not much that I well need

pakalasa

Bizzum wrote: »

Burnt oil?

Yep ........:D. Using it for over 20 years now.

Bizzum

pakalasa wrote: »

Yep ........:D. Using it for over 20 years now.

I know a chap that cuts timber for a living. All's he ever uses is burnt oil on the bar. 6mths is all he keeps a saw, trades them in and buys a new one then.
From the point of view of burnt oil being a carcinogen. The contact when using it as bar oil is just about zero. It's unlikely to enter the foodchain used in this way.
I'm sure the bar/chain life would suffer though.

Figerty

I always go 40 to 1 on the mix on the advice of the chainsaw salesman. Might not be great environmentally, but the saw lasts longer.

Burnt oil on a blade isnt a great idea due to the sulphur content and the possibility of metal particles. Ever wonder why the saw won't cut straight??? (aside from bad sharpening. Modern engines are way better than old engines so premature wear might not be as big a problem.

Personally, I see the blade on a chainsaw is the most dangerous part of the saw so I am not taking chances. Burnt oils smokes alot more than proper chain oil

bbam

Finnt wrote: »

Apparently the stihl and husky genuine oil is a semi synthetic oil and some of the cheaper oils are mineral oils and need to be mixed at a ratio greater than 50:1 for the sake of a couple of pence stick with the stihl or husky oils!
As for using burnt oil as chain oil that s**t is cancerous! Apart from not been great for the bar and chain

On the point that burnt oil is a carcinogen, all oils are carcinogens. Burnt oil is often labeled as some super cancer causing mixture but the truth is that oils, diesel and petrol are all considered as carcinogens.

Personally I'd worry most about petrol. Petrol vaporises and the concentrated fumes are inhaled into your lungs. Where worst case scenario with burnt oil is it gets into your skin.

reilig

I'm no expert on it, but I would have thought that burned oil is more of a dangerous carcenogenic than unused oil due to the fact that it has been used. It has been heated to quite high temperatures within the engine and cooled on several occasions. This is what I thought would have made the burned oil more dangerous than unburned oil. perhaps I'm wrong??

I wouldn't be a fan of using burned oil on a chain because it effectively contains all of the waste from the engine - tiny fragments of steel from engine wear. This can do no good to the oiling system of your say. Further to than, using oil with minute fragments of metal contained in it to lubricate your saw chain can't be the most effective thing to maintain the sharpness of the links??

Off topic, but I remember a few years ago when a neighbour borrowed a tipping trailer to draw some topsoil from us. On its return, we used it a few days later, only to find that the neighbour had burned oil in the back end of his tractor and he had tipped the trailer several times with it. The back end in our tractor was contaminated and we had to do a full oil change in the back end. It was an expensive loan for us.

bbam wrote: »

On the point that burnt oil is a carcinogen, all oils are carcinogens. Burnt oil is often labeled as some super cancer causing mixture but the truth is that oils, diesel and petrol are all considered as carcinogens.

Personally I'd worry most about petrol. Petrol vaporises and the concentrated fumes are inhaled into your lungs. Where worst case scenario with burnt oil is it gets into your skin.

Figerty

Apparently Diesel engine exhaust are carcenogenic as well, who would have thought!

You are right about petrol being dangersous.

reilig

Figerty wrote: »

Apparently Diesel engine exhaust are carcenogenic as well, who would have thought!

You are right about petrol being dangersous.

Both diesel engine and petrol engine exhausts expell carbon monoxide. Its not ideal stuff to be breating in.

pakalasa

On the burnt oil - I store it in a small barrell and let it settle. I take the oil then from the top with a jug, so that all metal fragments are well settled. I use glooves of course. I have my current saw about 10 years now with the same bar. I flip the bar over every time I edge the chain, so that wear is same top and bottom.

Finnt

The main thing I don't like about using burnt oil is Under normal use a certain amount of the oil will vaporise and you'll end up inhaling it,
That's what puts me off it!
As for using mairne two stroke mairne engines are usually water cooled and as such Don't have as big of demands as air cooled machines.

Manoffeeling

Bizzum wrote: »

Burnt oil?

Dirty stuff with no lubricant because it is burnt out of it. Hence, it is called burnt oil

cena

So my local garage has 2 stroke oil (maxol brand) but it has a motorbike on it. Can I use that.

meathstevie

cena wrote: »

So my local garage has 2 stroke oil (maxol brand) but it has a motorbike on it. Can I use that.

Yes.

Oldtree

On health terms alone I am always shocked to hear that my comrades in arms are using burnt oil to lube their chainsaws. Burnt oil is a serious carcinogen and as the lube is vaporised it is inhaled and is a direct health hazard. perhaps as cancer can take a long time to strike you do not worry about it but believe me you will regret it when you have to under go chemo and radiation.

i was concerned enough about inhaling a vaporised mineral chain lube that I moved over to a biodegradable chain lube delivered to my shed door by distributer:

http://www.maxolubes.ie/lubricants-products/cat_view/26-lubricants-products/117-forestry/125-maxol-bio-degradable-chain-oil.html

If that is too expensive I have heard stories of straight vegetable oil being used with no problems.

I was also concerned about using the ordinary 2 stroke so I moved to a semi synthetic Stihl/Husqvarna 50:1 mix (less burnt 2 stroke oil to inhale in exhaust) with no problems and less smoke, instead of a 25:1 mineral mix.

But I have just recently started using Aspen. Expensive i know about three times the cost, but it is unbelievable that there is almost no smoke out of the exhaust. It comes premixed with 50:1 Husqvarna 2 stroke semi. •No Lead •No Benzene •No Sulphur

Some blurb:
http://www.husqvarnachainsaws.co.uk/acatalog/Aspen_Petrol_Info.html

delivered from these people here for €6.50:

http://www.mower-power.com/shannonside/product.asp?numRecordPosition=3&P_ID=776&strPageHistory=&strKeywords=&SearchFor=&PT_ID=206

The difference at the end of the days chainsawing as to how I feel and in my breathing using aspen and bio lube has to be experienced to be believed.

imo it is environmentally unsound on many levels to use a burnt oil chain lube when a chain lube oil is totally lost into the environment.

All I can say is mind yourself now