FrancisPerson

What is the difference between castor oil and beanoil ?

RaceCity

No difference. Castor oil comes from the castor bean, hence the nickname "Bean Oil".

Klotz labels their castor "BeNol" as sort of a play on this.

Castor...Bean Oil...BeNol...it all comes from the same little poor innocent bean.

downunder

The other brand with a play on the words is Castrol....CASToR OiL...they had their beginnings about 100 years ago producing castor oil for cars and then planes.

FlyNBHappy

My Feedback: (7)

I also read RCR and was confused by what Mr. Winch had to say. Been using castor oil in all my 2-stroke and 4-stroke with no side effects as Mr. Winch wrote. I homebrew with 0-5% nitro, Coolpower go-Kart oil (gold with castor) at 20%, and the rest methanol. Haven't seen rusted bearings in my 30+ engines......even with several batches of 20% Bakers AA castor.

Even though Mr. Winch's opinions are different then ours, I too enjoy reading his articles.

RaceCity

FlyNBHappy....you seem to offer the notion that there may be some variability with Bakers AA. Running "several batches"with no rust ???

I've run the stuff consistently for almost 30yrs and haven't seen a problem, so use it with abandon! It's an old, tried-N-true product. It's good stuff.

FWIW...I've run BeNol as well in some other engines and find it to run well, albeit nowhere near as clean as Bakers. For the price, BeNol ought to be sensational, but it seems no better than Bakers, and Bakers costs less, PLUS it runs cleaner in my experience.

Go figure.

FrancisPerson

RaceCity,

Thanks for an answer about BeNol that I can actually use.

Francis

wcmorrison

My Feedback: (2)

Oh, My. What a rousing discourse. I wrote R/C Report and they had the guts to print my letter in this issue. After reading our Aussie fiends comments about Brian Winch, I was right to begin with, some castor is good, no castor is bad.

I too sensed the hype in Brian Winch's writings, none of that in Clarence Lee's writings. BTW Clarence Lee has designed and manufactured engines, I rather think he qualifies as an engineer. Don't know squat about Brian Winch except what I have read. What I have read makes me wonder.

I hope Gordon Banks reconsiders him. Probably has a contract and is stuck for a while. To good of a report to continue with a questionable contributor.

Cheers,

Chip

FlyNBHappy

My Feedback: (7)

Race,
My intention was not to degrade Bakers AA castor, but to state what I've been using all these years (never used Benol....quite expensive as you stated). Mainly I run 20% castor/syn lube, but once in a while I'll mix a batch of 20% all castor. That was what I meant to say.

As far as cleanliness, my Baker's is still very messy. I don't think there is a "clean" castor oil.

Jim Thomerson

It is castor oil's job to go through your engine, lubricating all the way, and emerge out the exhaust unchanged except for carrying off some heat. So it gets on your airplane and does its best to hang on when you try to remove it.

griz11

I run R/C dragsters and use castor only in my engines. We do some crazy things to our engines. Like using 55 and 60% nitro and very little oil 3% or less. Synthetic just doesn't hold up to this madness The runs only last a couple of seconds for a very slow one 1.6 seconds for a competitive run 1:10 track which is 132 ft long. I've used Klotz and Castrol castor in my motorcycles and Castrol in my cars for ever with no problems in any of them. I think the problem when you get a lot of carbon from castor is overheating the engine. That formula in a previous post tells you why. If you get the heat and pressure up enough to break those bonds all you have left is carbon. That is the only time I see any deposits in mine. I tear down my engine completly after every race clean it out with B12 Chemtool and let it dry before reassembing it using a little castor. I started doing this because I noticed if I didn't the crank wouldn't turn as freely. I attribute this to the castor left in the engine starting to gum up. One guy at our track runs no oil in his top fuel engine during the actual competition. He runs 3% for the practice and switches to none during the rounds. Certain brands of nitro have a little lubricant in them for blowers. If you use that you don't need oil in our sport. That engine ran for over a year won the biggest event last year and finally gave up a bearing a couple of weeks ago after a run-away. Castor only in that engine. I don't think the synthetics would hold up. Castor might be sticky gummy goo compared to synthetic but it protects and sticks to parts better than synthetic in my opinion.

Griz

loughbd

Chip, in which issue of RCR was your letter printed?? Never mind, I found it, the May issue. Love Winch's answer. There is no synthetic used today that has a higher flash point than Castor oil like he says. Castor burns and leaves and ash hard enough to scratch chrome???? Oh, puleeze. It leaves CARBON and the only carbon that hard is Diamond. Maybe we have little diamond makers mounted on out airplanes. Hey we can all be rich. I'd sure like to see that ash. I could use it for a grinding compound with my lathe.

Sport_Pilot

H'mm some industrial diamonds are as black as coal. Even industrial diamonds are worth a lot, so maybe we should build an automobile sized glow engine with castor oil and clean and scrape monthly to pay for fuel plus extra profit!

Phil Heller

My Feedback: (9)

I will not run an engine unless the fuel contains at least 5% castor in the lubrication mix.

As far as Winch is concerned, his column is entertaining in a manner that makes me believe he was bitten by a rabid Dingo and it has affected his cerebal functions![sm=rolleyes.gif][sm=rolleyes.gif][sm=rolleyes.gif]

Phil

Kreth

I use castor as lubricant as I have a number of older engines. [8D]

loughbd

Now there is an idea with merit. let's do it and we'll all be rich.

Jim Thomerson

I've seen an anti-mole spray compound to use on your yard which was almost all castor oil. No idea if it works.

loughbd

I know how it works. The mole comes toodling along, sees the stuff and thinks it's food. Takes a big gulp. The next thing he knows is he's crapping his brains out and wastes away to nothing. No more mole.

Wonder if it will work on the mole on my back??

RaceCity

Kreth...

You have "older engines" BECAUSE you run castor. See my point?

Keep that old iron going....

hpi apollo

can anyone actually send a link to the article, i am really skeptical about this

loughbd

skeptical about what????

hpi apollo

skeptical about that brian winch guy flaming on castor oil and truly getting 44 gallons outta his engine

Sport_Pilot

I am skeptical that he actually kept track of the fuel he used.

loughbd

February issue if Radio Control Report

Satsloader

I'll Paraphrase one of Cher's best lines.. " I'd call him ( Brian ) stupid, but that would be an insult to stupid people".

Ok, that may be harsh on the old duffer, but his reasoning doesn't stand against proven history.. Castor is a superior lubricant for glow fuel engines. Unfortunately a lot of modeler's won't find thier way to info sites like RCU to at least be exposed to alternative opinions. Some will likely take Brian's comments as the last word and find out the hard way what a good insurance policy castor is against the eventual lean run. And that's the real bit isn't it.. I mean, in a perfect world fuel lines don't split, needles don't get clogged, outside temp and humidity don't change. I'd use Klotz synth all day in that world ( and at the end of that perfect world day, I would run the the engine dry and pour some castor in the carb and hand cycle the prop a few times, because hey, even in a perfect world I use nitro in my fuel ). Castor has it's place, even in a perfect world.

Bill

Campgems

I'm just getting back into the hobby after a 30 year layoff. I bought a new Magnum 52 four stroke for my first plane and the break-in instructions is use a minimum of 20% castor, don't use synthectic. 10% max nitro. We live in a hobby deprived area, and the three stores here sell paint balls and car fuel. I finally found a quart of 10% nitro with 17% Caster/synthecic oil. A bit low on Castor so I went down to the local drug store and picked up a 6 oz bottle of Castor oil, the largest I could find. I ask the drugest if it had any additives because I was going to burn it in my model airplane engine. His reply was that it was that it was USP so it was pure and then we got into a half hour discussion about model airplanes and such. I poured an ounce or so into the fuel and shook it up well. No noticable extra smoke, and the engine seemed to run fine. I think I'm going to put another ounce in what is remaining fuel and do my last two break in tanks and first flight using it.

I need to find a source of castor oil locally, the stuff at the drug store is expensive. Around $1.20 an ounce.

Hope the wind is calm in the morning, I may get to test flight my plane.

Don