Why Castor Oil Is Bad.

Toysrme · March 13, 2006

From Brian Whinch. A man with decades of experiance as a professional engine reviewer, rebuilder, servicing, and engineering. In both model, and car engines.

From a rescent R/C Report article.

THE GREAT CASTOR OIL CONSPIRACY

Some years back, in my professional capacity, I investifated an animal cruelty report wherein a sheep was tethered on a chain attached to a stake in the ground, with no food or water avalible. In the circle within the limits of the chain's length, the ground was almost barren... A virtual desert landscape due to the sheep having eaten almost every plant, every blade of dried grass, leaf, and even twing to survive. On the edge of the circle, however, well within the reach of the sheep, one plant still stood. It was about 5' high and lush with large, fleshy leaves. Not one leaf, however, bore witness to the sheep even tasking it.

The plant was a specie of euphorvia from India, with the Latin name, Ricinus communis, the deadly castor bean plant. This is the same plant from which castor oil is extracted when the seeds are crushed. An oil that contains acid that will attack metal, sugars will provide harsh carbon when burned, and natural gum that can stick metal together with a bond as strong as solder. This same oil was fed to humans with dire results. We barfed and pooped at great speed, often at the same time!

Since the dawn of time, when some retarded cave dweller crushed a castor seed on a rock with the skull bone of a pterosaurus, tasted the foul liquid that driopped on the rock, and noted it's incredibly awful effects, all his descendants have been trying to find a use for the poisonous goop. One way or another, you will use castor oil. It's all a part of the great "Castor Oil Conspiracy".

As a kid I was fed the stuff if I looked sick, if I wasn't radiant, felt down in the dumps, and when I misbehaved. A large spoonful was mixed in orange juice, with a little baking soda to make it fizz. Man it was awful! (My wife Shirley, almost my age, still can't stand orange juice due to the memory of the castor that was put in it when she was a young'n.) You generally barfed it back and forth a few times to the tune of, "Swallow it! Swallow it! If you bring it up again, you'll get another dose!" So you swallowed it, and then a few hours later you wasted a lot of time in the throne room painting the procelain.

When you got older, and past the castor dose stage, you got around to kissing some nice girl if you were lucky, and you got another does because castor is used in lipstick! You asked the girl to the Saturday dance, so Saturday afternoon you scrubbed yourself clean as a new penny and copped some more !Removed! castor, as it's also used in soap. You really like the girl, so after a respectable time has passed, you proposed marriage. She accepts, you put down a deposite on a cute little bungalow, and you proceed to make it nice and paint it pretty. Yes, you did it again, because castor is used in paint and varnish! If, a few years later, she finds out about your affairs with other women, she might do you in with ricin, a toxic protein used as a chemical reagent. The !Removed! stuff will get you in the end. Oh ya forgot to mention, ricin is extrated from castor beans!

GETTING SERIOUS NOW

Okay , by now you might have come to the conclusion that I don't like castor oil. Why, whatever gave you that idea? I just don't like ingesting it, and don't like using it in my fuel. I'm sure you've seen the instructions for a new engine, and you may have read that castor should be part of the oil content, or now in rare cases, the only oil content. You might have also read that the use of castor is not advised in a particular engine, such as a Saito, for example. So who is correct? First let's explore why some dealers and egine manufacturers recommened castor oil.

According to information passed to me, it's a matter of semantics. What's meant by the instructions is to use synthetic oil! DOes this require a knowledge or understanding by the product? THe answer is definitely "Yes"! Here's the problem. DO you fully understand what is meant by synthetic oil and it's compatibility in fuels? I use a fully synthetic oil in my bedford van (My road vehicle). Could I use the same oil in my glow engine fuel? What about a sump full of Klotz in my BMW motorcycle? DO you think there is a great variety of synthetic oils in all places around the world? Not a chance, mate. Let's try some horses for courses.

You visit your doctor (who is a super MD, but engineering challanges, so he knows nothing about engines). In a casual conversation you mention, "I have a double overhead cam with 20* of overlap" (your latest, super hot 4C<4 Cycle> engine). He smiles and replies, "Take two asprin and see me in the morning." On another visit the doctor says to you, "Do you have carpal tunnel syndrome?" You say, "I'm not sure. Is that a BIY <Build It Yourself> kit or an ARF <Almost Ready-to-Fly> kit?"

Another type of confusion is like the problem at the model club party, when the band leader noticed the drummer had his trouser fly open. He went over to the drummer and whispered, "Do you know your fly is open?"

"Not offhand", said the drummer, "but if you hum a few bars of it, I'll pick up the beat."

It's a problem of understanding the topic at hand.

Right then. Now that we understand the problem, let's apply it to lubricating oil. The manufacturer of the Bloorinse range of 3-stroke engines has, in their instructions, the warnings that these engines will only run on fuel which contains synthetic oil. A modeler in Blertville, Lower Slobbovia, buys their engine and reads the instructions. Now, Lower Slobbovia is a rather remote principality under the rule of His Royal Encumberance, Prince Floggadog, and he owns the only chemical processing plant in the area. THe synthetic oil produced by El Prinso is sort of refined from the renderings of the fat removed from dead rats and yaks that died from obesity. It will not, however, mix with methanol (or anything else for that matter). The poor old Slobbovian modeler cannot run his engine as there is no such thing as synthetic oil that will mix with methanol in his country.

On the other hand, had the isntructions laid down that castor oil must be used, there would be no problem. Everybody in the world (well, almost everybody) knows what castor oil is, and you can always get it from the chemist or stea.. er.. 'borow' it from the local hospital. The engine owner would be happy because he can now run his engine on a fuel that has an easily obtained oil. It doesn't matter at the time he'll later have to send the engine to me (or some other repairer) to have the hard black carbon removed, the liner deglazed, and the baerings replaced due to gum deposites. He's happy anyways, because for the moment atleast, he can run his engine.

Seriously now, I really cannot believe that modern day engineers would recommend castor for a lubricant in light of the magnificent advances with synthetic oils. We have industry running on ultra modern CNC machines that will (almost) instantly replicate any shape or form with incredible accuracy. We now have metallurgy so advanced we can have aluminum allow pistons running in nickel plated liners at speeds exceeding 40,000rpm. Yet there are still those among us who cling to a corrosive oil that we used for cast iron pistons in steel liners machined on turret lathes. You have got to be kidding!

Wait... hold on. Someone picked up on my "corrosive oil" statement. Yes, castor is corrosive. My son collects buried treasure, old artefacts he digs up in rivers and early settler home sites. TO clean most of the metal items, I soak them in molasses (Dark syrup produced during the refining of sugar cane juice) or medicinal castor oil. Both are acidic and work slowly at etching away the corroded surface down to the base metal. If I love the item soaking for too long, it too will be eaten.

A final example closer to home is a ball bearing. Get a new bearing clean it in alcohol or petrol. THe note the surface finish on the balls and the two inner races (The grooves). They look almost like they're chrome plated. Run with the correct lubrication, this surface finish will endure until the balls rattle out of the cage from wear. RUn an engine on castor, though, and leave it for a few months until it's gummed up tight. When you eventually strip it down, carry out the same proceedure with the bearing. You will see a grey patina on the balls and races, and a very close examination with a microscope will show a rough surface. While the bearings are in this clean state, stick them on a wood handle as I described in my first colum, and listen to them rattle. Nuff said.

If you still feel a strange urge to use castor oil in your fuel, use one that has been de-gummed, has had the sugar removed, and has a very low acidity. I used some Bakers AAA castor once, that come from your island <North America>, and it was pretty good compared to other goops avalible. One that I have tested at the company's request is from VP Performance Products, and it's really good (as castors go) due to being super refined in many ways, to the point that it's probably now just a distance reltation to the crud we once had to ingest.

In WWI the brake pilots of those stick and rag aircraft did two things other than their flying chores. One was to wear a flapping silk scarf, and the other was to run away from the aircraft, evena fter a successful landing. The silk scarf had nothing to do with a badge of brotherhood ("I wear it because all the fliers wear them"). It was to dissipate the constant buildup of static electricity in the wood and canvas frames. The running away bit was not to escape from the aircraft in the event that it would blow up, it was due to the total loss oil systems used in the engines. Castor oil was a prime lubrication, and it constantly sprayed in the face of the pilot who, obviously ingested a goodly amount during a long flight. On landing the best place to be was the little library room to let the castor do its dastardly work. An old and common saying here is having a dose of the runs, and it always applied after some fool of an adult forced a generous serve of castor down your throat.

HOW MUCH LUBRICATION?

If I had a cent for every time that question is asked, I'd have my chauffer drive my Mercedes limo over a bump to shake the ash of my imported Cuban cigars, while my team of female secretaries recorded my dicated material for the next "R/C REPORT" colum. How muchd do you need?

About 30 odd years back, I conducted a series of tests with a synthetic oil over a period of around 12 months. The fuel containing the oil was used in a range of temperatures, humidity, and oil ratios, in a range of engine types and sizes. Pieces of metal often used in the manufacturing of model engines were soaked in the oil, covered in the oil, then drained, dipped in the standard type of fuel mix, and left to dry. Two engines were run on the fuel, and the one was left to sit for six months, while the other was started and run once every week, but left just as it was when it stopped. I was looking for gumming, corrosion, glazing, carbon, and any other factor deleterious to the running and life of the engine. The engines remained identicle in both wear rate and showed no signs of rust or gum deposites.

About two years back, a father son team, who are close mates, lashed out for the latest, biggest YS to be used for powering apattern model. Long discussions ensued, and compression ratios checked with a result that the fuel would be 30% nitro and 25% Cool Power synthetic oil. That engine never misses a beat. After using 200 liters (44 gallons) of fuel, and contributes a good amount of it's reliability to the fact that the son is in the top ten pattern fliers in Australian (he's coming to your nationals next year, so be warned!). As a service check, the engine was dissembled last month, and honestly, you'd be hard pressed to suspect that it had run more than a few hours. All that was to be found was a slight dark yellow stain on the piston crown. <common place to any non water injected internal combustion engine>

The rest of the engine was so good that it was reassembled and used that very afternoon.

On a few occasions I have been asked by engine companies to test an engine to the point of destruction. What happens if it's run at full speed right out of the box, buy without being stupid (running super lean, super rich, or ridiculously small props). I've never been able to destroy an engine this way on synthetic oil, and believe me, my tachometer has recorded some super high RPM. I've seen over 40,000 for a 2C, and 21,000 for a 4C. Now that's really cranking along!

dcfish · March 14, 2006

From Brian Whinch. A man with decades of experiance as a professional engine reviewer, rebuilder, servicing, and engineering. In both model, and car engines.

From a rescent R/C Report article.

THE GREAT CASTOR OIL CONSPIRACY

Some years back, in my professional capacity, I investifated an animal cruelty report wherein a sheep was tethered on a chain attached to a stake in the ground, with no food or water avalible. In the circle within the limits of the chain's length, the ground was almost barren... A virtual desert landscape due to the sheep having eaten almost every plant, every blade of dried grass, leaf, and even twing to survive. On the edge of the circle, however, well within the reach of the sheep, one plant still stood. It was about 5' high and lush with large, fleshy leaves. Not one leaf, however, bore witness to the sheep even tasking it.

The plant was a specie of euphorvia from India, with the Latin name, Ricinus communis, the deadly castor bean plant. This is the same plant from which castor oil is extracted when the seeds are crushed. An oil that contains acid that will attack metal, sugars will provide harsh carbon when burned, and natural gum that can stick metal together with a bond as strong as solder. This same oil was fed to humans with dire results. We barfed and pooped at great speed, often at the same time!

Since the dawn of time, when some retarded cave dweller crushed a castor seed on a rock with the skull bone of a pterosaurus, tasted the foul liquid that driopped on the rock, and noted it's incredibly awful effects, all his descendants have been trying to find a use for the poisonous goop. One way or another, you will use castor oil. It's all a part of the great "Castor Oil Conspiracy".

As a kid I was fed the stuff if I looked sick, if I wasn't radiant, felt down in the dumps, and when I misbehaved. A large spoonful was mixed in orange juice, with a little baking soda to make it fizz. Man it was awful! (My wife Shirley, almost my age, still can't stand orange juice due to the memory of the castor that was put in it when she was a young'n.) You generally barfed it back and forth a few times to the tune of, "Swallow it! Swallow it! If you bring it up again, you'll get another dose!" So you swallowed it, and then a few hours later you wasted a lot of time in the throne room painting the procelain.

When you got older, and past the castor dose stage, you got around to kissing some nice girl if you were lucky, and you got another does because castor is used in lipstick! You asked the girl to the Saturday dance, so Saturday afternoon you scrubbed yourself clean as a new penny and copped some more !Removed! castor, as it's also used in soap. You really like the girl, so after a respectable time has passed, you proposed marriage. She accepts, you put down a deposite on a cute little bungalow, and you proceed to make it nice and paint it pretty. Yes, you did it again, because castor is used in paint and varnish! If, a few years later, she finds out about your affairs with other women, she might do you in with ricin, a toxic protein used as a chemical reagent. The !Removed! stuff will get you in the end. Oh ya forgot to mention, ricin is extrated from castor beans!

GETTING SERIOUS NOW

Okay , by now you might have come to the conclusion that I don't like castor oil. Why, whatever gave you that idea? I just don't like ingesting it, and don't like using it in my fuel. I'm sure you've seen the instructions for a new engine, and you may have read that castor should be part of the oil content, or now in rare cases, the only oil content. You might have also read that the use of castor is not advised in a particular engine, such as a Saito, for example. So who is correct? First let's explore why some dealers and egine manufacturers recommened castor oil.

According to information passed to me, it's a matter of semantics. What's meant by the instructions is to use synthetic oil! DOes this require a knowledge or understanding by the product? THe answer is definitely "Yes"! Here's the problem. DO you fully understand what is meant by synthetic oil and it's compatibility in fuels? I use a fully synthetic oil in my bedford van (My road vehicle). Could I use the same oil in my glow engine fuel? What about a sump full of Klotz in my BMW motorcycle? DO you think there is a great variety of synthetic oils in all places around the world? Not a chance, mate. Let's try some horses for courses.

You visit your doctor (who is a super MD, but engineering challanges, so he knows nothing about engines). In a casual conversation you mention, "I have a double overhead cam with 20* of overlap" (your latest, super hot 4C<4 Cycle> engine). He smiles and replies, "Take two asprin and see me in the morning." On another visit the doctor says to you, "Do you have carpal tunnel syndrome?" You say, "I'm not sure. Is that a BIY <Build It Yourself> kit or an ARF <Almost Ready-to-Fly> kit?"

Another type of confusion is like the problem at the model club party, when the band leader noticed the drummer had his trouser fly open. He went over to the drummer and whispered, "Do you know your fly is open?"

"Not offhand", said the drummer, "but if you hum a few bars of it, I'll pick up the beat."

It's a problem of understanding the topic at hand.

Right then. Now that we understand the problem, let's apply it to lubricating oil. The manufacturer of the Bloorinse range of 3-stroke engines has, in their instructions, the warnings that these engines will only run on fuel which contains synthetic oil. A modeler in Blertville, Lower Slobbovia, buys their engine and reads the instructions. Now, Lower Slobbovia is a rather remote principality under the rule of His Royal Encumberance, Prince Floggadog, and he owns the only chemical processing plant in the area. THe synthetic oil produced by El Prinso is sort of refined from the renderings of the fat removed from dead rats and yaks that died from obesity. It will not, however, mix with methanol (or anything else for that matter). The poor old Slobbovian modeler cannot run his engine as there is no such thing as synthetic oil that will mix with methanol in his country.

On the other hand, had the isntructions laid down that castor oil must be used, there would be no problem. Everybody in the world (well, almost everybody) knows what castor oil is, and you can always get it from the chemist or stea.. er.. 'borow' it from the local hospital. The engine owner would be happy because he can now run his engine on a fuel that has an easily obtained oil. It doesn't matter at the time he'll later have to send the engine to me (or some other repairer) to have the hard black carbon removed, the liner deglazed, and the baerings replaced due to gum deposites. He's happy anyways, because for the moment atleast, he can run his engine.

Seriously now, I really cannot believe that modern day engineers would recommend castor for a lubricant in light of the magnificent advances with synthetic oils. We have industry running on ultra modern CNC machines that will (almost) instantly replicate any shape or form with incredible accuracy. We now have metallurgy so advanced we can have aluminum allow pistons running in nickel plated liners at speeds exceeding 40,000rpm. Yet there are still those among us who cling to a corrosive oil that we used for cast iron pistons in steel liners machined on turret lathes. You have got to be kidding!

Wait... hold on. Someone picked up on my "corrosive oil" statement. Yes, castor is corrosive. My son collects buried treasure, old artefacts he digs up in rivers and early settler home sites. TO clean most of the metal items, I soak them in molasses (Dark syrup produced during the refining of sugar cane juice) or medicinal castor oil. Both are acidic and work slowly at etching away the corroded surface down to the base metal. If I love the item soaking for too long, it too will be eaten.

A final example closer to home is a ball bearing. Get a new bearing clean it in alcohol or petrol. THe note the surface finish on the balls and the two inner races (The grooves). They look almost like they're chrome plated. Run with the correct lubrication, this surface finish will endure until the balls rattle out of the cage from wear. RUn an engine on castor, though, and leave it for a few months until it's gummed up tight. When you eventually strip it down, carry out the same proceedure with the bearing. You will see a grey patina on the balls and races, and a very close examination with a microscope will show a rough surface. While the bearings are in this clean state, stick them on a wood handle as I described in my first colum, and listen to them rattle. Nuff said.

If you still feel a strange urge to use castor oil in your fuel, use one that has been de-gummed, has had the sugar removed, and has a very low acidity. I used some Bakers AAA castor once, that come from your island <North America>, and it was pretty good compared to other goops avalible. One that I have tested at the company's request is from VP Performance Products, and it's really good (as castors go) due to being super refined in many ways, to the point that it's probably now just a distance reltation to the crud we once had to ingest.

In WWI the brake pilots of those stick and rag aircraft did two things other than their flying chores. One was to wear a flapping silk scarf, and the other was to run away from the aircraft, evena fter a successful landing. The silk scarf had nothing to do with a badge of brotherhood ("I wear it because all the fliers wear them"). It was to dissipate the constant buildup of static electricity in the wood and canvas frames. The running away bit was not to escape from the aircraft in the event that it would blow up, it was due to the total loss oil systems used in the engines. Castor oil was a prime lubrication, and it constantly sprayed in the face of the pilot who, obviously ingested a goodly amount during a long flight. On landing the best place to be was the little library room to let the castor do its dastardly work. An old and common saying here is having a dose of the runs, and it always applied after some fool of an adult forced a generous serve of castor down your throat.

HOW MUCH LUBRICATION?

If I had a cent for every time that question is asked, I'd have my chauffer drive my Mercedes limo over a bump to shake the ash of my imported Cuban cigars, while my team of female secretaries recorded my dicated material for the next "R/C REPORT" colum. How muchd do you need?

<Long explaination not pertinant to car engines>

About 30 odd years back, I conducted a series of tests with a synthetic oil over a period of around 12 months. The fuel containing the oil was used in a range of temperatures, humidity, and oil ratios, in a range of engine types and sizes. Pieces of metal often used in the manufacturing of model engines were soaked in the oil, covered in the oil, then drained, dipped in the standard type of fuel mix, and left to dry. Two engines were run on the fuel, and the one was left to sit for six months, while the other was started and run once every week, but left just as it was when it stopped. I was looking for gumming, corrosion, glazing, carbon, and any other factor deleterious to the running and life of the engine. The engines remained identicle in both wear rate and showed no signs of rust or gum deposites.

<Lotta speak about oil-fuel ratios>

About two years back, a father son team, who are close mates, lashed out for the latest, biggest YS to be used for powering apattern model. Long discussions ensued, and compression ratios checked with a result that the fuel would be 30% nitro and 25% Cool Power synthetic oil. That engine never misses a beat. After using 200 liters (44 gallons) of fuel, and contributes a good amount of it's reliability to the fact that the son is in the top ten pattern fliers in Australian (he's coming to your nationals next year, so be warned!). As a service check, the engine was dissembled last month, and honestly, you'd be hard pressed to suspect that it had run more than a few hours. All that was to be found was a slight dark yellow stain on the piston crown. <common place to any non water injected internal combustion engine>

The rest of the engine was so good that it was reassembled and used that very afternoon.

<Leet engine speak, his personbal preffernces in fuels bends.>

On a few occasions I have been asked by engine companies to test an engine to the point of destruction. What happens if it's run at full speed right out of the box, buy without being stupid (running super lean, super rich, or ridiculously small props). I've never been able to destroy an engine this way on synthetic oil, and believe me, my tachometer has recorded some super high RPM. I've seen over 40,000 for a 2C, and 21,000 for a 4C. Now that's really cranking along!

"On a few occasions I have been asked by engine companies to test an engine to the point of destruction. What happens if it's run at full speed right out of the box,"

I asked the question in another thread "How long would a l6 run if tested like this " And never received a comprehensive answer, But that's ok. fuggetaboutit.

Fun read, I like the writing style over the topic itself. MHO