Sperm Whale oil question

[Catshooter]

Very interesting auction browntown. I was under the impression that it was illegal to sell, period, regardless of packaging or age.

$225. That surprises me really. I mean that's alot of money for a little can, but on the other hand it's pretty much unobtainium.


Cat

[Dan4570]

Speaking of Sperm Whale Oil, to my knowledge it is legal own and buy and sell as long as it was in the country prior to the endangered species listing.

I had just posted on the Shiloh forum about an 1870's bullet lube recipe that called for 1 part bees wax and 2 parts Sperm Whale Oil ?
Has any here ever had the chance or knew any one that had the chance to try it as a bullet lube additive? If so how did it work?
The only person I knew that would have likely used it died several years ago. This has spiked my curiosity.

From what I read, I think my lube may be performing very much like the 1870's stuff, however I can't be sure since I can't test the original recipe. ( No, before you ask, I am not giving up my recipe, I am currently marketing it and working on patents)

The the stuff that is supposed to be near identical is very high priced, so I'm not even going to tell my guns about it, they will just have to eat what I have been making. They will never know what they might be missing !

[captaint]

I have a very small bottle of SWO that I legally purchased, in the seventies, from a jewlery store. The bottle is about the size of a stack of, maybe 20 dimes. Really small. Produced by the W. F. Nye co., somewhere in Mass.

[BrentD]

I have made the 1:2 beeswax:sperm oil lube and it is nothing special.

[Echo]

It was used to oil clock gears and pivots - it doesn't creep, like petroleum oils do, so doesn't spread all over the works, just stays right where one puts it. Synthetic transmission fluid samo....

[Dale in Louisiana]

Ed Harris recommends substituting DEXRON III transmission fluid for sperm oil in his "Ed's Red" recipe.

dale in Louisiana

[Certaindeaf]

I'm pretty sure you can "own" it, grasshoppered.. I mean grandfathered.
Pretty recently, here in the US, you can still own natural ivory but just cant sell/trade it, from what I hear.
I inherited a full tiger "cape?" decades ago and sold it to Iteah.. sp? and they asked me a couple questions and then bought it cash.

[MaLar]

I have used this to make lube with and it works better for me than SPG.
I mix it two oil to one BW for winter and one oil to one BW for the rest of the time.

http://www.dixiegunworks.com/product...oducts_id=2073

[Char-Gar]

LAW 101: If it was legal to do or own at the time the act was done, or the item acquired, it is still legal. The Constitution of the United States says there will be no Ex Post Facto laws. This means there can be no laws passed in this country making something illegal now, that it was legal at the time.

If owning whale oil was legal at the time of purchase, it is still legal to own it, if you are the original purchaser. I don't know about whale oil, but there are laws prohibiting the "transfer" of some items to cut down the trade in some things. The current transfer is a new act and it's prohibition is not an Ex Post Facto law.

Factoid: Back in the day, Brownells used to sell pint cans of whale oil for use in gun lubrication and work. I had several.

[Char-Gar]

Ed Harris recommends substituting DEXRON III transmission fluid for sperm oil in his "Ed's Red" recipe.

dale in Louisiana

Yes, the early automatic transmission on cars used whale oil and Dexron III was developed as a substitute. That is where the color red comes from in Ed's Red, which is great stuff.

[Certaindeaf]

Yes, the early automatic transmission on cars used whale oil and Dexron III was developed as a substitute. That is where the color red comes from in Ed's Red, which is great stuff.

I thought sperm whale oil was absolutely clear.

[Char-Gar]

I thought sperm whale oil was absolutely clear.

Sperm oil is clear and Dexron III is red. Dexron III is what is used in Ed's Red that gives it a red color.

[quilbilly]

Believe it or not, there is an actual natural replacement for sperm oil and NASA has used it in the past since, like sperm oil, it doesn't lose its lubrication qualities in extreme cold. I used to sell it as fishing reel and gun oil here locally. It is ratfish liver oil. A ratfish is an ancient relative of sharks. An guy in Seattle was getting the ratfish from local trawlers who usually discarded them as trash fish. He would get them, remove the liver, then leave the livers in the sun on hot tin roofing material while the oil drained off which he then put in plastic bottles. The oil really worked but had an odd smell as you can imagine. The guy long ago passed away and I doubt if anyone else would do this today. This piece of trivia will not do you any good even at NCBS cocktail parties.

[Outpost75]

Ed Harris recommends substituting DEXRON III transmission fluid for sperm oil in his "Ed's Red" recipe....dale in Louisiana

Or LATER versions, Dexron III was the Ford Mercon replacement which dated from the 1980s.

They are up to VI now for model year 2005 and later vehicles, supposedly OK to use in the older vehicles, depending upon which reference you read:

http://www.cartechbooks.com/techtips/autotransfluid

https://mobiloil.com/en/automatic-tr.../dexron-vi-atf

[country gent]

Case oil or Sperm whale oil was also used on measuring tools and other fine fitted equipment. It didnt dry out get gummy or go rancid. If I rmeber it also had a higher working temperature than petrolium based lubes. Alot of Michrometers, calipers, and indicators were lubed with this. It was also the lube of choice for clocks and sewing machines.

[shaper]

Several years ago I owned a big tool called a Pullmax p5. It was old and weighed about 1800 pounds. It was used to form metal. Some of our aircraft carriers and other vessels had one on board. When I put new bearings in the working head I looked at the manual and it called for whale oil. I showed this to our Shell Oil co. petroleum supplier. A couple weeks later 4 quarts of oil showed up on my desk. Don't know who put them there and I didn't ask what was in them. It may be the old stuff or it may be some kind of new stuff. I still have one quart.