Originally Posted by
Warren Mickley
There is a difference between purifying and refining. Purifying means getting rid of impurities that are not oils to make it safe for skin or consumption or what ever. Refining means narrowing the molecular weight or boiling point to a certain range. Mineral oil which is not crude oil has been refined. the more volatile stuff like gasoline components and mineral spirits and the heavier stuff like tar are removed in the refining process. A highly refined oil has has components in a tight range of molecular weights and is more expensive.
When I was a teenager, I bought a 1/4 ounce of mineral oil for $1, minimum hourly wage at the time. It was clock oil. You did not want it to spread away from the bearing or gum up, etc. In order to get stuff in a tight range you need to do more refining steps. That same oil today is made synthetically, but is still around $15 an ounce.
Stew .... thank you so much for sharing your experience.
Warren ... what do you men by made synthetically. Are they not still derivate of hydrocarbures?
Yes 3-in-one has a smell to it (for me a nice smell) anyway I read somewhere that they add anti-corrosion additives
thx ^^
Last edited by Haitham Jaber; 01-22-2024 at 8:44 AM.
We get lost in the over-building and perfect material arguments that sometimes we simply loose sight of the making (Tom Fidgen)