Hi Greg,
As you discovered olive oil isn't cheap. Which one/grade to use ..... the thickest,slowest running you can find amongst them. I anticipate being arrested while pulling bottles of olive oil from the shelves and tipping them this way and that [
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Glycerine should be in the home baking section of a supermarket, or large grocery store. It is only a small bottle, similar to the coloured dyes that are used in cake icing and such.
Why bother.... well why do people climb mountains ? I seem to remember you saying you don't have a lot of time, fortunately I am the opposite and if something engages my interest I have plenty of time to get involved in it. I fancy producing a vegetable oil based lubricant. It would be readily available from shops and easily made. I could use synthetic... the thing that worries me about synthetic oil in a diesel mix is.... there are no commercial fuel mixes sold with synthetic as the lube.
Far more experienced people than me seem to think that castor is the only safe lubricant for model diesels. If large and very well respected fuel manufacturers are not using synthetic then I have to assume that they can see the potential drawbacks and don't want to tarnish their hard earned reputation. They are producing a fuel which is going to be used in many different types of engine. They have to take account of the differences... no good using a lube that is only any good if the wrist pin is a large diameter and also bushed, most engines won't fit that criteria.
Playing about with non-ether or low ether mixes can result in the engine needing far more compression to run, I try to avoid this situation - if I cant get the compression down then I don't want that mix. Increased compression puts a heck of a lot more stress on the engine.... not a good time to use a lube that may decide to "unzip" !
One potential drawback with synthetic is it's ability to "unzip" and go back to it's constituent ingredients when it fails. At that stage the lube has catastrophically failed... end of engine !
My friend who was playing around with this stuff years ago reckons that a straight grade of 2 stroke oil is O.K, but avoid any oil that contains additives as they frequently cause problems.
Reg