Caster Oil Question?

[Spike S]

... the refining is to take the smell away from the Castor. During clean up I could not smell the usual caster oil fragrance, that's a plus in my book.
Dave

Isn't the hot Castor oil smell a large part of the nostalgia ?
I can match 60 years ago flying diesel-powered FF and combat C/L 1958 to 1966. The Castor oil from local chemist worked fine, as did the ether bought by the pint from the same source; try asking for that today ! "AVPIN" additive (Isopropyl Nitrate) came from a club member who worked in the fuel section at the local RAF station. The Jets there used it for their starter turbines so they would never miss the odd 2cc. Interesting procedure and arguably "digital" - press the button and Bang, Whoosh - you enter one of only two states - running or on fire:- "Go fly" or "Run away" ! I became personally familiar with that phenomenon in my later career flying the dear old Wessex Mk1.

[bluejets]

No particular "smell" from the castor oil.....diesels are definite due to the kero/ether....no such smell from methanol engines.

[stormer254]

I used Castrol R in my PRE65 scrambles bikes and often used to retire to the garage in the winter and start my old Tribsa, the splash of R in the petrol used to give off an amazing aroma and would keep me happy to the start of the next season, the open pipes helped as well!

[Tobe]

I left castor/Castrol M in the 70's for synthetic/Castrol MSSR and have runned everything on synthetic since then including diesel of which all today still flips over despite years in storage and still feels like new despite many have been running tens & tens of hours.

[iflylilplanes]

The last bottle of Castrol M I purchased cost me $15, that was back in the 1980's, and was expensive for back then. Around 1988 I started using a synthetic oil called Glo-Glide by an Australian manufacturer, it was advertised to use at 2.5% 40:1, for about 4 years I ran it in all my glo engines both 2 and 4 stroke and, they loved it, all my Glo-Glide run engines as far as I Know still ran perfectly after I sold them on. I still have an old OS20 4stroke ran on 40:1 fuel, about to be cleaned up and put back into service again, still turns over and has good compression.

The story going around back when Glo-Glide disappeared off the shelves was, the inventor/manufacturer tried to break into the automotive industry with new synthetics that out did the usual products and was made the offer he could not refuse, sold everything to never be seen again and no explanation as to why or where.

This is the reason why I went back to castor oil, then to electric power when Lipo's came into use, leading up to the last few years when I got tired of electric and started firing up the old IC collection, I even don't mind the clean up after flying. Castor oil has been the staple for the 53 years I have been flying IC engines but for the 4 years I used Glo-Glide. The new synthetics are also extremely expensive that's why I have gone back to castor oil, it's never let me down.

[_AL_]

Sorry Dave. No luck with the Dirt track guys.
The ones who are still riding are all using synthetic & high octane racing fuel or just bumming around on enduro bikes with pump fuel.
It doesn't sound like anyone runs Methanol & castor anymore.

Looks like you found some anyway.

[iflylilplanes]

Well, after a few more tanks full through the OS15 I will make up my mind, if this refined oil is ok, the price is great, I will be happy to pay $13.64 a litre, 5 litres at a time. Lack of smell is not a worry to me, or the cleanup. Next IC model is a 40 powered 3D ship then a 40 powered Quickie 500, will start to go through fuel then.

[Wayne_H]

.....The story going around back when Glo-Glide disappeared off the shelves was, the inventor/manufacturer tried to break into the automotive industry with new synthetics that out did the usual products and was made the offer he could not refuse, sold everything to never be seen again and no explanation as to why or where.
......

I still have some Glowglide in it's original white bottle. No idea if there is a shelf life, but its always been stored in an insuated foam box along with all the other ingredients I haven't needed or used for years to mix up fuel!?!

[bluejets]

There is this............

https://www.htdirect.com.au/products/c ... -castor05

[iflylilplanes]

There is this............

https://www.htdirect.com.au/products/c ... -castor05

Convenient, close by but, almost $20 more expensive, plus the owner of that store and I, are not really, from past experience, I will just say, the store is conveniently close by (has a halfway good supply of DuBro and other such hardware).

I had 3 more tanks go through the OS15 yesterday, I'm happy so far to continue using the "Refined Castor Oil" from New Directions and quite happy to not have the castor oil smell around all the time. have enough of the litre I purchased to make up another 4 litres of fuel, so I will finally make up my mind at the end of this 5 litres.