Safe Oil For Stream Bed

NEK VT · May 14, 2007

i WANT TO CLEAR BLOWDOWNS OUT OF A STREAM BED.. i HAVE BEEN USING THE STHIL bAR OIL... but am afreid that could hurt water quality. what is a safe oil to use that is gonna not hurt my chain and bar... and will not make a mess of the saw either. I am not sure I like the canola oil idea.

B_Turner · May 14, 2007

NEK VT said:
i WANT TO CLEAR BLOWDOWNS OUT OF A STREAM BED.. i HAVE BEEN USING THE STHIL bAR OIL... but am afreid that could hurt water quality. what is a safe oil to use that is gonna not hurt my chain and bar... and will not make a mess of the saw either. I am not sure I like the canola oil idea.

Stihl makes a bio oil, although a bit pricey. I have used the Stihl bio, Baileys bio and straight canola oil. All work fine under normal conditions, although I would not run straight canola in a saw that isn't used regularly as there is some anecdotal info that it can set up if it sits too long.

All three clean up easier than dino oil, even through they seem to leave a slippery film on the bar (which I kind of like). I know of at least two commercial oufits that use bio exclusively with no problems over the last year or so. I have not noticed any quicker bar wear on my own saws, but I tend to run very sharp chains which run cooler anyway.

Austin1 · May 14, 2007

Canola

Give Canola a try I think you will be impressed! I have been using it for a year now and will never use regular bar oil again. And the fish will thank you. I can buy it at the grocery store and it is less than half the price of reg oil. Don't use anything else like corn oil or so ya base I find in turns to jelly in cool weather. But Canola will stay fluid to -22c I tested it and as mentioned above I also like the slippery coating it gives.And if you store your saw just rinse out the oil tank with a solvent

mbopp · May 14, 2007

I clear hiking trails around a lake so last weekend I tried canola oil. I can't see where it the bar & chain were the worse for wear using it. I did have the oiler cranked up to the max but had to back it down a notch when I found I would run out of bar oil before the gas. My normal bar oil mix has about 1/3 ATF added to the bar oil (for the detergent additive for pine sap.) I dumped the canola oil & refilled it with this mix & ran it through the oil pump before I put the saw away.

Austin1 · May 14, 2007

mbopp said:
I clear hiking trails around a lake so last weekend I tried canola oil. I can't see where it the bar & chain were the worse for wear using it. I did have the oiler cranked up to the max but had to back it down a notch when I found I would run out of bar oil before the gas. My normal bar oil mix has about 1/3 ATF added to the bar oil (for the detergent additive for pine sap.) I dumped the canola oil & refilled it with this mix & ran it through the oil pump before I put the saw away.

That is a really good point ATF works great on pine sap I used to use that all the time,but now just stick to Canola, but when I store my saws I think I will run some ATF through them.