mineral oil for planes?

[Charles Goodnight]

I have heard of rubbing planes and irons with everything from jojoba and camillia oil to lard. Is there any reason not to use mineral oil? It is dead cheap, I already use it as a finish on cutting boards and the like, and it seems like it would be the perfect oil for preventing rust on metal tools.

[David Weaver]

I've been using it for a while. I can't remember who said it previously on here or on another forum, but someone described camelia oil as being mineral oil with camelia in some % for scent.

I never was that impressed with camelia oil for the price, i've had just as good of experience with mineral oil. It's about the same price to buy 8 pints of lightweight mineral oil as 8 ounces of camelia oil - I won't be going back to camelia oil for any reason. Leave it to the cosmetics folks.

[Rick Lapp]

No reason at all, though I might thin it a bit with mineral spirits or turpentine. Come to think of it, that resin aroma might be more pleasing than camilia or jojoba. Rick

[Jon van der Linden]

I've been using it for a while. I can't remember who said it previously on here or on another forum, but someone described camelia oil as being mineral oil with camelia in some % for scent.

I've never seen adulterated camelia oil. Regardless of whether you find camelia oil useful or not, it would be interesting to know the source of this "information."

[george wilson]

I wouldn't use turpentine as it is a powerful oxidant. It is also very bad to get on your hands. Causes arthritis,the paint shop here says. At least REAL turpentine will.

[Gary Hodgin]

Are we talking about the mineral oil sold at the drug store, grocery store, etc...? I don't know of any other kind, but would like to make sure. I've got a big bottle that's ready to go if so.

I've been using camelia oil for a while with good results but don't like the price. I use a lot of the stuff.

[Robert G Brown]

I used Baby Oil. Got the idea from Brent Beach's site on sharpening. He says it is mineral oil. It works pretty good. When looking for cheaper mineral I found out that Feed Stores sell Mineral Oil by the gallon for treating horses and cattle for constipation.

[John Coloccia]

Camellia oil is used for cooking. It has exactly 0% mineral oil in it. If you have something labelled camellia oil that has mineral oil in it, you've been ripped off and you should return it.

I was using Camellia oil, but now I use mineral oil. I don't think it really matters but I have mineral oil around for lots of other reasons (buffing lube, salad bowl and cutting board treatment, etc) so I decided that it makes no sense to have yet another bottle of something laying around when mineral oil is just as good.

[David Weaver]

I've never seen adulterated camelia oil. Regardless of whether you find camelia oil useful or not, it would be interesting to know the source of this "information."

It was either on here or wood central. Maybe someone will speak up.

[David Weaver]

I used Baby Oil. Got the idea from Brent Beach's site on sharpening. He says it is mineral oil. It works pretty good. When looking for cheaper mineral I found out that Feed Stores sell Mineral Oil by the gallon for treating horses and cattle for constipation.

Yes, feed stores, and commercial kitchen supply places sell it as food safe lube for meat slicers (the light mineral oil).

The bonus is if you use mineral oil for anything else (I use it once in a blue moon when I decide to get out the oil stones, and also to mix with beeswax), then you can duplicate uses.

So it sounds like it's about 3 to 1 that camelia oil doesn't have mineral oil - I wouldn't be able to tell, none of it has anything on the label other than the origin or japanese script.

At any rate, it's not a very good rust protectant, anyone wanting rust protection would be far better served to mix beeswax and mineral oil in a double boiler and rub that on planes, saws, etc, if you want rust protection. It's easy to apply and much more effective.

If camelia oil was widely available as cheap as mineral oil, none of the woodworking supply places would sell it to us for the same reason they don't sell light mineral oil as a sharpening lube (at least not without calling it "honing oil" for much more $$) or rust protectant.

[John Coloccia]

One thing to add. I believe some of the Japanese bottles of Camellia oil ARE mixed with mineral oil, and I suspect this is better than camellia oil on it's own. I found that Camellia oil on it's own can get kind of sticky or gummy, just like any vegetable oil. It shouldn't be labelled as camellia oil, though, if it's mixed like that. It should be pretty clearly labelled. I don't think I've ever looked at one of those bottles closely so I don't really know. Camellia oil is also available as "tea seed oil", and that's typically what you'll find it labelled as in health food stores.

So maybe there is truth to this because of bad labeling? I think I have a bottle at work...I should check this out.

[Charles Goodnight]

Thanks for the comments. For what it is worth I always buy my mineral oil in the pharmacy. There is very pure unadulterated mineral oil that is sold as a laxative. Baby oil is the same thing, but has fragrances added. The laxative stuff has nothing in it but mineral oil (of course, I do consider my planes to be my babies, so maybe having them smell baby fresh would be a good idea. . . )

[David Weaver]

I don't think I've ever looked at one of those bottles closely so I don't really know.

I did. It was all in japanese so I couldn't see anything!

Except for the LN bottle, which says "product of china" at the bottom, and the squirt mechanism stopped functioning about a tenth of the way into the bottle. (the ones on their website I can almost make out "japan" on the bottle, maybe they changed suppliers).

Just trying to guess away at things, but I do recall the LN oil getting cloudy when it was sitting outside on the porch one time - at least partially cloudy. Mineral oil doesn't do that at, say, 40 degrees, does it? Maybe theirs (LNs) is all vegetable based. It's no matter, once mine is out, that'll be the last I see of any $25 a pint oil.

[Jeff Bartley]

What about walnut oil? It's one of the only vegetable based oils that doesn't get rancid. I use it on cutting boards; takes a long time to dry but it works well. Never tried it on planes.....

[Jim Matthews]

I've recently tried Olive oil for setting my scraper blades (drawing the burr, etc.)
and found that I can't reliably raise a burr. I suppose the oil is sufficiently thick that the burnisher "floats" above the surface.

If a thicker oil is applied to a handplane (as a film) will the resultant finish be different?

I recall a recent Roy Underhill article where wooden planes were lubricated with tallow.

It would seem that so long as the oil is only applied for storage, it should not matter.

Thoughts? Discuss among yourselves...http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/ac/Coffee_talk.JPG