Made some Felix lube, think I messed up

[leas327]

I decided to try to make FXFL and think I messed it up. When I went to the store to get the castor oil. I bought it and laxative mineral oil from the pharmacy section. I went home and cooked up a big batch of the oil on a hot plate in my basement. I was having trouble controlling the heat. I heated the mineral oil until it started to smoke and added the caster oil. I stirred for an hour messing with the heat the whole time. It ranged from around 260 to 340 degrees. It would smoke a little and at one point it kind of had some white bubbles going. When it was done I let it cool and poured it in a container.
A few hours later I went down and melted the wax, added the oil and then the rest of the ingrediants as per the intructions. I noticed after I had added the oil that the stuff in the container had seperated. Is that normal? I thought the point of cooking it was to blend it. Also, The lube came out hard as a rock. It is softer than the straight bees wax but it is much harder that the speed green I bought or the ol juniors I made a while back. Should I throw the oil I cooked away, or try to recook it? The lube I made didn't leak any oil out when I set it in the window for a day. I just scooped the oil out of the container so the lube was made with the lighter oil that was at the top. Will that work or is the lube junk? It was a regular batch so its not like I messed up a huge amount. Please show me the error of my ways.
Thanks

[fryboy]

i tried lab grade oils , cosmetic grade oils and food grade oils ( as well as plain baby oil once ) mine always separated , some report that theirs didnt ( btw i still have a decent supply of premixed and cooked oil ;) ) when i use it i shake the heck out of it first , from what i gather the mineral oil is used to help transform the hydrocarbons in the castor oil into a longer chain ( ummm not being a geek or a scientist to me that translates to a more complex altered oil ) the castor is the real lube and if it is as hard as you state you could try adding oil from the bottom ( the heavier castor oil ) if you added 2 tablespoons of the lighter oil add one of the bottom oil and check your lube , repeat if needed ...of course you could just make a batch with the bottom oil only and then mix the two batches ( i'm also admitting that i'm not the expert on this )

[stubshaft]

When you cooked the oil did it come out a nice amber color? I would collect the oil and try to recook it if not.

[geargnasher]

There are a couple of things wrong here. The first was scooping some off the top and only using that. If you followed the directions you would have been using the oils hot where they blend into one, homogenous liquid. The othere mistake was adding the oil and other ingredients to the melted wax, should be the other way around.

Your oils will likely separate when cooled, dont' worry about it, you probably cooked them enough to polymerize the castor oil, and polymerization should not be confused with homogenization. You can't see the hydrocarbon chains linking up with the naked eye, so don't worry about it unless you get little beads of oil "sweating" out of your finished lube on a warm day after a few months.

Your oils are fine, just make a fresh batch of lube starting by reheating and reblending your oils, (I'd use a microwave oven and shake the bottle to get them to mix), measure out the amount you need, pour that in a saucepan, add your grated soap, let it foam and boil off the water, stir, stir, stir and heat until the soap is melted, THEN add your beeswax an melt it all together, then let it cool until it starts to haze on the edges and add your lanolin.

You an use a cooking thermometer or candy-making thermometer, they cost about 5 bucks and will tell you what you need to know. Don't heat your oils much over 300, try not to get your wax much over 225, and don't add the lanolin until the whole mess is under 150.

Gear

[runfiverun]

i heard nothing about the sodium stearate, thats the binding agent.
gear has the splanation on the polymerization

[geargnasher]

Nice legs, R5R!

Gear

[leas327]

I was mistaken. I thought that once you cooked the oils they would be mixed. The bottom part is amber like Sam Adams, the top looks like Miller Lite. I thought after the oils were cooked all you needed was enough heat to melt the wax and mix everything together. I put the sodium sterate in. I got it, the lanolin, and the carnuba wax from a group buy that was done here a while back. Looks like I will have to try again.

[geargnasher]

So you made FWWFL (Felix/Wiljen World Famous Lube). That's a bit different. If you purchased ingredients from the group buy, you didn't use sodium stearate, you used stearic acid. One of the reasons to use stearic acid is that it dissolves right in, whereas Ivory soap needs a lot of encouragement. Since you have Wiljen's ingredients, you should have his version of the recipe included in the deal, read and follow that set to the letter and you'll be on the right track. The first batch you made might not be very good lube because it won't have any castor oil in it due to not mixing before measuring out the pre-cooked oils.

Gear

[btroj]

Nice legs, R5R!

Gear

Yeah, but what does the rest look like?

[runfiverun]

wow, make one smart comment to ken and look at what happened to my frog..
i thought things went from nice to froggy not the other way around.

[jonk]

You add the beeswax to the oil while the oil is hot.

You didn't follow the instructions.

No wonder it didn't turn out right.

Might be ok if cut with some vaseline as a pistol lube.

[waksupi]

I would load up the soap in the oils until it wouldn't accept any more. When I do it, I keep adding soap, until I see some foam starting to form on the top. I have never had a batch separate using this as a gauge.

[leas327]

This seems to be beyond my abilities as as chef/lube maker. I tried, it didn't work out, back to something easy. I had no problems with juniors PCFL and am happy with it, but thought I would give this a try. This seems like too much work for what I need. I shoot and cast for pistols only so i don't think I am leaving anything on the table. I will count it as a lesson learned from the school of life.