"Extreme" boolit lube, The Quest...

[runfiverun]

the beeswax retains a lot of toughness with the gel.
the mineral oil has a tendancy to soften it up, but if you can pinch/tear a chunk off it's about right.
you also have to watch it to make sure the oil is absorbed and doesn't bleed off.
i haven't gotten to a saturation point yet.
i have only added 1 tbs of the gel to 2 oz's of b-wax.
i have gotten far more into micro-wax, i put 1 oz of gel into 2 oz's of wax and it could take as much as a 50-50 blend to get the right visc.

i like the lube to be where i can form it into a stick shape by squishing it in one hand.
the b-wax is just about there now.
the micro-wax is still too tough.

[geargnasher]

MJ, Jojoba changes phase at ~40F and you can't put enough in the lube to plasticize the wax without making it super-slippery in the heat.

Read post 1538 or the one before it.

I've been making soap grease at about 30-50% soap concentration. That's a large, 4-1/2 ounce bar (fresh, very "wet") to about four ounces of oil.

One reason to go with a petro wax is that it allows a total change in the lube formulation: If one can get the soap in with the wax instead of oil/vaseline, one can use a lot LESS oil/vaseline total. My problem with Longhorn lube is I had to use at least a 50/50 ester oil/soap grease, and to use enough of it to make the lube as soft as I wanted, there ended up being too much slick ester in the mix and that caused purge flyers, even in my .45 ACP with a 4" barrel. I would like to use a softer wax, less oil, and be able to melt the entire mess together. Fortunately, I found that Redline oil plasticizes the beeswax better than other waxes, so adding more beeswax, some Fluidmaster ring, and a couple ounces of Babybel rinds fixed it right up, took care of most of the flyers, still soft, not too thixotropic, and not too slippery, yet slippery enough in the cold.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

the beeswax retains a lot of toughness with the gel.
the mineral oil has a tendancy to soften it up, but if you can pinch/tear a chunk off it's about right.
you also have to watch it to make sure the oil is absorbed and doesn't bleed off. Yeah, something odd (perhaps related to solubility) happened when I added stooopid candle dye as a "finishing touch". Small globs of gel came out of solution and the lube actually got a bit thinner. Temp was around 200F, IIRC, and I ran it up to about 250F to see if the gel would go back into solution... it did not.
i haven't gotten to a saturation point yet.
i have only added 1 tbs of the gel to 2 oz's of b-wax. Yeah, I added about 3 Tbs to 6 oz beeswax
i have gotten far more into micro-wax, i put 1 oz of gel into 2 oz's of wax and it could take as much as a 50-50 blend to get the right visc.

i like the lube to be where i can form it into a stick shape by squishing it in one hand.
the b-wax is just about there now.
the micro-wax is still too tough.

It's definitely "shootable" at this point

[geargnasher]

3 TBS of weak sodium grease to 6 oz beeswax is really close to Felix lube.

Gear

[Marlin Junky]

MJ, Jojoba changes phase at ~40F and you can't put enough in the lube to plasticize the wax without making it super-slippery in the heat.

Copy that, Jojoba = hot weather additive, perhaps

I've been making soap grease at about 30-50% soap concentration. That's a large, 4-1/2 ounce bar (fresh, very "wet") to about four ounces of oil.

One reason to go with a petro wax is that it allows a total change in the lube formulation: If one can get the soap in with the wax instead of oil/vaseline, one can use a lot LESS oil/vaseline total. My problem with Longhorn lube is I had to use at least a 50/50 ester oil/soap grease, and to use enough of it to make the lube as soft as I wanted, there ended up being too much slick ester in the mix and that caused purge flyers, even in my .45 ACP with a 4" barrel. I would like to use a softer wax, less oil, and be able to melt the entire mess together. Fortunately, I found that Redline oil plasticizes the beeswax better than other waxes, so adding more beeswax, some Fluidmaster ring, and a couple ounces of Babybel rinds fixed it right up, took care of most of the flyers, still soft, not too thixotropic, and not too slippery, yet slippery enough in the cold.

Gear

Ian,

I thought we were making the grease from USP mineral oil and Ivory and just using the ester as an additive? I still want to incorporate a combination of petrol wax and beeswax though.

MJ

[Marlin Junky]

3 TBS of weak (I'll try to get it up to "Grade 2" next time) sodium grease to 6 oz beeswax is really close to Felix lube.

Gear

Right, no castor oil though (or lanolin).

And it's not a substitute for Felix Lube, it's just a lube base (as I indicated in post #1532).

MJ

[runfiverun]

we are trying to work the soap into the lube as an ingredient a main ingredient not using it as a grease maker.
when i am refering to a gel i'm really talking about a crosslinked plastic substance with really long chains.
i could just about shoot my gel as a lube on it's own,there just isn't a good way to keep it in the lube grooves plus it's too slick.

[geargnasher]

Copy that, Jojoba = hot weather additive, perhaps You missed the part about too slippery in the heat......

Ian,

I thought we were making the grease from USP mineral oil and Ivory and just using the ester as an additive? I still want to incorporate a combination of petrol wax and beeswax though.

MJ

We're experimenting with lots of things to make the sodium grease. Mineral oil is less slippery and has a higher viscosity than the ester two-stroke, so you can use a higher total percentage in the lube. The USP mineral oil is what Joe uses, and it works well IF you have the correct complimentary ingredients. The wax he uses is very flexy and stretchy, and the petrolatum is a very high film-strength form of un-refined Vaseline, basically rod wax.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i know we have a couple of oil field guy's on here i.
or that piper place i linked before for the "j"-lube.
that rod wax might be findable.

[geargnasher]

we are trying to work the soap into the lube as an ingredient a main ingredient not using it as a grease maker.
when i am refering to a gel i'm really talking about a crosslinked plastic substance with really long chains.
i could just about shoot my gel as a lube on it's own,there just isn't a good way to keep it in the lube grooves plus it's too slick.

I'm working it in as a non-melting carrier ingredient, around 30-35% of the lube total by dry weight. Something I tried last night that seems to be pretty decent this morning is 1 part Ivory, 1 part new Yaley wax, one part Fluidmaster toilet ring, and about 5% ester oil. I mixed the Yaley and Fluidmaster first and let it cool to check congeal point and consistency, then soaped it at 475F, gave it a splash of ester and poured it into moulds while still liquid and smoking to holy heck like the soap lubes always do when fully liquid. This basic concept works with a variety of ingredients.

Gear

[Eutectic]

I am watching these high soap/petro wax combos with a keen eye...

Some of the very soft (even low melt temps) microwaxes could be interesting with high soap?

I am starting to agree that ester 2 stroke percentages should be lower. Use the 2 stroke ester for final adjusting if needed (single digit %'s) maybe like hBN.

I haven't gave up on polybutene either. My best working lube formulations so far have it in them.

I am also wondering about the wide range multi-vis conventional motor oils, like 5w-30, 10w-40 etc. Not to use in formulation mind you! But I'm thinking about the additive itself used to accomplish this range..... I wonder what would happen if THIS ADDITIVE was added to one of these soft petro waxes??? Could we get a multi-vis wax??

Maybe Bruce knows? Be an interesting test...

Eutectic

[Marlin Junky]

we are trying to work the soap into the lube as an ingredient a main ingredient not using it as a grease maker.

Ah-so, and how are you melting it? Obviously, one can't get beeswax hot enough without making a mess. Can Ivory (in powdered form) be melted in one of the "micros" (e.g. BW-408) from Blended Waxes?

when i am refering to a gel i'm really talking about a crosslinked plastic substance with really long chains.
i could just about shoot my gel as a lube on it's own,there just isn't a good way to keep it in the lube grooves plus it's too slick.

A "crosslinked plastic substance"? Isn't that like a poly-whatever, i.e., plastic film or sheets?

MJ

[runfiverun]

a cross link can still be a fluid.
or a solid like pvc pipe or something like a guar powder can be relaxed and x linked.
the soap needs something liquid to help it break down from a solid to a liquid,we are after it's base ingredient.
if we could get it into a micron sized consistent powder we'd probably be working with it that way.
remember gear and i are working it over 400-f and are taking it in the 450-f range.
you get different reactions with heat.

[geargnasher]

As I've been saying, the petroleum waxes can all take the heat needed to fully melt the Ivory. Beeswax can't come close, so the soap must be melted with some wax/petrolatum/oil substance that CAN take the heat to make a grease, then melt in beeswax at lower temps. The low scorch point of beeswax limits what can be done when using a lot of soap in the lube,

Gear

[bruce381]

""I am also wondering about the wide range multi-vis conventional motor oils, like 5w-30, 10w-40 etc. Not to use in formulation mind you! But I'm thinking about the additive itself used to accomplish this range..... I wonder what would happen if THIS ADDITIVE was added to one of these soft petro waxes??? Could we get a multi-vis wax??""

try it the VII (viscosity index improvers) are mostly plastics disolved in a base oil or melted into the motor oil at small percent.

they are avalible dissolved in base oils a hivh vis polymer (like old STP oil treatment) or a plastic "crumb".

they are soluble in oils so wax? probably also

email me I will send a Liquid or crumb.

[bruce381]

normal treat rate is 1-2% solid crumb or 5-10% as a pre diluted liquid.
or try old style STP it used to be a polymer like this with ZDDP added but it mayniot be even avalible anymore.

[btroj]

So STP may have properties bend the ZDDP that make a lube better? Interesting.

[geargnasher]

My only question here is will these coiled VI-improving polymers do us any good when the wax is in it's normal, solid state. There's a difference between a phase-change viscosity drop and hardness changes of a solid at varying solid temps (like frozen or room temp). I'm not sure the VI improvers will have any effect on solid wax.

The focus is CORE and consistent lube friction. I've tested lube formulas that exhibited very consistent film friction properties regardless of temperature, even molten and at 0F in my deep freeze. Remember I froze and heated some lube samples as well as my friction tester apparatus and did some crude comparisons, this is where I discovered that certain soap blends with just the right amount of Ester synthetic oil worked the same despite significant overall hardness changes, from frozen hard and solid to liquid molten runny. It's tricky to balance, but doable, so my conclusion was that the overall viscosity of the lube doesn't have to be constant at all temperatures to perform close to the same provided the "slickness" factor and film strength of the thin oil/frozen wax in the cold and hot molten mix are similar. Just food for thought.

Gear

[357maximum]

Once upon a time I found a great source for a dark brown petroleum jelly like substance that is just a bit thicker than vaseline but not quite as thick as bowl wax. Trenton "wax tape primer(brown)" it is used for wrapping gas mains so that they do not rust. It is available from Trenton- 7700 Jackson Road Ann Arbor Michigan 48103 (734) 426-3955

The missing ingredient from Starmetals SOAP LUBE is cat turd...as the sample that Joe sent me smelled just like a litterbox. In all honesty it was an above average lube, but like most lubes it had it's issues when it got cold out.

I still think the right microwax will solve this thread, but I could be wrong. In all my playings it was almost always the carrier that gummed up the works at some point. I still think that simple lithium grease and the right carrier are all that needs be found. I got so close to where I wanted to be with MML, and in the end I believe it was the waxes that left me just shy of perfection.

I have been observing this thread with interest....keep up the good work.....carry on...I did not mean to interupt.

[Eutectic]

Will a PAO (polyalphaolefin) synthetic oil polymerize castor oil??

Eutectic