I have had to edit my original version of this post as... due to a senior moment... I got all my figures wrong !

Thanks for your comments Andy and following your experiments with interest.

I wend my way down the road to a quiet spot (quiet 'till I get there) and do my engine testing. That way I don't distress anything but a whole heap of beach inhabiting sea birds

Like you I also have wondered about the use of a modified veggie oil as a lubricant in glow fuel.

I reckon there will be some major developments in the commercial production of vegetable oil based lubricants in the near future.

The modified olive oil I am currently using is based on.....

Using virgin olive oil as thick an oil as I can find. This may not be necessary if refined olive oil, which is a good deal cheaper, can be found that is viscous enough.... I haven't explored this yet.

The oil is modified by the following method.... * note that it is a 1/2 litre quantity of oil - adjust for a litre *

Water 15cc
Glycerine 15 cc
Washing up liquid 20cc

(It may be possible to use more glycerine... 20 cc or more and that would be beneficial)

Stir water, glycerine and washing up liquid together in a pan. Add the 1/2 litre of olive oil and heat up. It is IMPORTANT to keep gently stirring throughout the process.

The mix will develop foam on the surface, once no more foam is being produced then put the pan onto a very low simmer and after a while the foam will either dissapear entirely or there will be very little visible.

Take the pan off the heat, allow to cool down and when cool filter into a suitable container.

The process doesn't take long... maybe 20 minutes total, apart from the cooling down !

BE VERY CAREFUL WE ARE DEALING WITH THE EQUIVALENT OF BOILING OIL ! Equivalent to the stuff they used to chuck over the sides of English castles onto anyone rash enough to attack them [:@]

I have used the oil at around 30 % when testing. This was easy to measure and was done initially for convenience 1 part oil to 2 parts kerosene.

My testing has been with a commercial model diesel fuel which has an ether content of 30% and a castor content of 24 %

I used my mix of olive oil and paraffin to dilute the commercial mix down to 1/3 of it's volume. This gave me a fuel mix with 10% ether and around 8 % castor. The castor would help as a bit of a safety net for the olive oil lubricant.

I have also run just an olive oil and kerosene only fuel with no castor and no ether in it and this also ran well.

Initially 2.5% of an ignition improver was added to the mix. I recently found that more of the ignition improver would allow the compression to be backed off to the stage where the engine was running at the same settings as when using a 30% ether mix.I need to do more tests and accurately measure the amount of ignition improver added rather than just splashing some in !

Today I sat down and did some calculations on cost. I hadn't priced up my homebrew fuel, although some of the ingredients seem dear when first buying them.... I got a surprise.....

To make 1 litre of 10% ether content diesel fuel.....
Commercial fuel mix (D2000 from Model Technics in the UK ) 330cc
kerosene (paraffin) 400 cc
Olive oil or castor oil 170cc
Ignition improver (Millers Diesel Power Plus in the UK ) 100cc

This gives a fuel with a TOTAL oil content of 24% and TOTAL kerosene content of 55% and 10% ether content.

My homebrew mix costs for 1 litre = £5 -64 or $10 .60 USA at $1.88 to a £1

A commercial 30% ether mix 1 litre = £7 - 95 or $14.57

Costs were based on using castor, olive oil would be a bit cheaper.

Ignition improver is quoted at 10% but 5% may be more realistic, which would also lower the cost a bit more.

I have a fuel that is much cheaper than the commercial mix. Retains 10% ether for the advantages it gives and starts very easily without any extraordinary methods used to get it started.

For those who don't have time or inclination or who prefer the safety net of castor oil as the lubricant then just add castor instead of olive oil.... easy

I can happily and safely run this mix and also know that if I need/want to then I can also switch easily into using a non-ether mix based on the olive oil as lubricant.

I am happy and will now restrain myself to just fidling with the amount of ignition improver to find the optimum amount.

So there we have it..... a comparatively cheap fuel, castor or olive oil can be used, the engine starts easily with a starter motor, the settings for the compression and needle are virtually the same as when using a 30% ether mix, so the engine is not exposed to high compression settings. I also now know that if model diesel fuel or castor oil become hard to obtain I can make a substitute non-ether mix that will run my engines...... sorted

Reg