crashcrater

My Feedback: (1)

I guess all you would need is a heating blanket and some metal tubing coils to boil the ether out of those parts store starting fluids.Then the leftovers would resemble something like coleman fuel.I would say that all but the Deere fluid have between 20 and 30% ether.I can barley get any of the smaller engines to run on that stuff.I tried four different brands and they all were defineatley thumbs down-the castor would only mix for about 10 seconds and totally seperate even when not using any kero at all.Regular 2cycle oil did hold a good mix though but the stuff is still quite useless for running a engine . Got my wood stove going quite quickly though... whooosh[X(] How about the still idea?What do yas think about it ?-Don

ffkiwi

I think it sucks-and I have a PhD in chemistry-so this is the scientist talking, not the modeller. Unless you have access to proper scientific distillation equipment, in a properly equipped laboratory, with the appropriate safety procedures in place-DON"T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT.
Distilling ether is an extremely hazardous procedure-and one not readily or willingly attempted even in research laboratories. I know-I've had to do it on a couple of occassions, and the compliance issues alone make it a major undertaking.

Establish what your ether precentage is in your starting fluid-and take the remaining % as hydrocarbon-and use this % as part of your kerosene component.

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

PS-if your starting fluid has only 25-30% ether-then you got the wrong sort of starting fluid!! By the time you dilute that with oil to at least 20% by volume to make a diesel fuel mix, you will have 20-24% ether-too low for reliable starting-though some of the larger engines may run on it, if started on a better mix.

AMB

Crashcrater As just pointed out VERY DANGEROUS STUNT> John Deere starting fluid is
almost 100% ETHER plus a small amount of lubricant snd yes a lot of the stuff you get in the auto parts store is low
you can go on the tower site and buy davis fuel for about $33 a gallon. I have mixed my own using John Deere when I ran out of the factory Davis fuel and if you do the numbers at $6 a can for the John deere stuff add in the castor, kero , and IPN it costs you more to make it than
buy it martin

BY the way I am a Pharmacist and have worked in Pharmaceutical plants, ether fumes creep and any source of spark , yes even a static discharge will set it off

Of course some of the guys on the site have mixed their own fuel, outside of the USA (Davis, Cluttton in the US) Model technics in the UK
mixing is your only option care and caution is required its not Kool Aid

Motorboy

Add some percent of Benol Klotz castor oil in castor oil then ether will not separate from castor oil.

I learned out when i mixed the Turtle Wax start gas in castor oil then the ether separated from castor oil. Since i allways add the percentage of Benol Klotz castor oil in castor oil before mixing with ether due castor oil are cheap than Benol Klotz castor oil. It is some stuff in Benol Klotz castor oil who are mixing with ether.

pe reivers

good tip Jens.
I always mixed the ether with the kero first, and then add the lubricant. That also works.
The modern high tech synthetic two stroke oils do quite well in diesel engines. Just check for heavy weight grades of above SAE30

gcb

And when you blow yourself up, all your neighbors would say that they were not aware that you messed with drugs.

For goodness sakes, you are in the USA, model diesel fuel is available and so is John Deere starting fluid. Additionally, check your local auto supply store. I'm sure there are other starting fluids with high enough ether content for fuel.

I prefer ready-mixed fuel.

Don't try chemistry...we need all the modelers we can get.

George

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

Jens, that is surprising. What kind of castor oil are you using? I had problems with old Sig castor not blending, but it must have oxidized over time.

There is no need to be messing around trying to "make" pure ether. Look up RE33636 at your John Deere dealer. It's close enough to pure that you don't need to compensate for anything. It's still less expensive to buy premixed diesel fuel, however.

AMB

Greg is 100% on go with the John deere no alchemy required, or buy premix. The stuff in the auto parts store is too low in ether to mess with
martin

Motorboy

I am using castor oil from Model Technics and Jero Fuel (Norwegian brand). Both new or old, same problem. The solvent are adding some percent of Benol Klotz castor oil. There i live are there John Deere dealer not.. The Turtle Wax start gas are available in gas station, supermarked etc..

The premixed dieselfuel has been gone out of hobby dealer for more than 20-30 year..

Martin and all folks, the important are how good are the start fluid to be used in model engine. If the engine are easy to start each time, means the start fluid has enough ether. The stuff in the start fluid can not hurt the engine.

earlwb

here in the USA trying to distill the ether out of the starter fluid will likely have the DEA and all the different police agencies arresting you as they think you are running a meth lab.
You will have a heck of a time trying to convince them that you were trying to make model airplane diesel fuel and not meth.

AMB

Earlwb Good point ... Also distillation of volatile flammables has risks even under so called "controlled conditions" sic ( oil refining and and chemical manufacture have leveled a few martin

crashcrater

My Feedback: (1)

It must be the large quanity of heptane in the Pyroil,Gunk,Thrust and the walmart one -super tech that the castor does not blend in too.It does mix fine with the deere fluid and the engines run well with 40 deere 40 kero and 20 what ever oil you use.Barely get my cox to run on strait generic starting fluid with only oil added and forget it if i add any kero.So,the engine is actually running(very low rpm like 5k) on heptane, ether and oil.Maybe different parts of the country get different strenghts or the batches made vary .Was just looking for a alternate can of starting fluid that works as well as the JD stuff.Pyroil makes a "Premium" version but i couldnt find any to test.Thanks for the feedback on the still idea-seems very hazardous according to you folks here so i cancelled any plans of that [:'(]-Don

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

I did a lot of searching for starting fluids. There is nothing else like the Deere product.

ffkiwi

Gents-a bit of basic organic chemistry: kerosene, paraffin (or for Jens Erik, 'parafin') is simply a mixture of alkane hydrocarbons, produced by fractional distillation and containing molecules of 12-15 carbon chains-which may be linear or branched. In terms of preparation and properties it is not too far down the food chain from, what we would generically call 'diesel fuel' -that is fuel for full size automotive diesel engines-merely a lighter boiling fraction. The name 'kerosene' was originally a patented trade name, but has like many of these become generic. Kerosene contains only alkanes which are CxH2x+2 in formula-no other elemernts. This makes them apolar, and generally immiscible with anything but similar compounds.
Ether-or to be correct,.'diethyl ether' -the volatile smelly stuff we all love and our engines need-has the formula C2H5-O-C2H50there is an oxygen in the middle of the molecule-which renders it polar as an organic solvent-able to mix (to a degree,) with both polar and non polar compounds. Castor oil-or to be correct ricinoleic acid triglyceride, is an esterified unsaturated fatty acid of totally biological origin. You can look up its formula and properties on google or Wikipedia if you wish. It has 18 carbons in the chain, a single double bond, and several hydroxyl groups. It will dissolve in a number of polar organic solvents including ethanol benzene, chloroform and carbon disulphide.

What it won't do is dissolve or mix with a non polar hydrocarbon like hexane, heptane, octane-or any of the higher alkanes including our friendly mixture-kerosene. But with the assistance of a polar solvent such as ether, which is miscible with both the non polar hydrocarbon element, and the polar fatty acid element-we get a stable mixture. In theory at least-you coulkd use ethanol or something similar-but then the fuel would have no self igniting properties!

The problem is not limited to diesel fuel-if you use glows extensively as I do-and high nitro mixtures-you will find that above 45% nitro, castor based fuels are unstable-and will soon separate out into a 2-phase mixture. A bit of acetone (dimethyl ketone-another 'polar' solvent!) sorts this out-as does going to a synthetic lubricant. The very high nitro mixes-65% nitro usually have no methanol at all in the fuel mix-its place being taken by propylene oxide-another volatile polar solvent!

In fact-the reason we use castor in our engines is largely a historical legacy! In the forties-the top racing ignition engines were using methanol based fuels-with nitro-and the only readily available lubricant which would mix with methanol (polar solvent again!) was castor oil. The fact that it was a superb lubricant was almost incidental to the matter. Then the glowplug arrived ca 1947-methanol fuels became the norm-and castor stayed around. WE didn't actually need it in diesels-mineral oils work quite well-and many commercial fuels in the UK in the 50's and 60s used a mineral oil base. Castor-because of its high cost-was reserved for the 'premium' top-of-the-line fuel mixtures.

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

Motorboy

Diethyl ether has a high cetane number of 85 - 96 and is obtained by distilling a mixture of ethanol and sulfuric acid.

AndyW

My Feedback: (1)

Way, way back, I wondered WHY ether was so required in our diesel engines. With much tinkering, I found that diesels WILL run with no ether in the fuel. Lots of ether in the prime, though, helped a lot to get them started. Then, someone pointed out that kero and oil were not supposed to mix. And yet, I had no trouble. The answer was that I was using Klotz Benol. Something they did to their version of castor oil made it mix easily with kerosene. At least it did at room temperature. Near freezing, it would seperate but that took a while.

Given that model diesel engines WILL run with no ether at all, ANY quickstart will add SOME ether and all that means is that the engine will be difficult or won't start at all. Unless, of course, you use a starter and some high ether prime. But at least SOME ether makes it all so much easier and smoother and makes throttling better. There appears to be NO substitute for ether for all the good reasons.

I've tried Canadian Tire quickstart with no problems but I didn't do any comparison tests.

ffkiwi

Andy-of course there is no substitute for ether-no other chemical compound has the same set of properties. Jens Erik-the cetane number of ether is almost irrelevant-it is the spontaneous ignition temperature (SIT) and flammability limits which is important for our use. Cetane number is related to antiknock properties and is almost (though not quite) the inverse of octane number. Ether is no longer obtained by distilling ethanol and sulphuric acid-this was an early laboratory and low level industrial process, which has not been used for many years. These days ether is produced by vapour phase dehydration of ethanol-itself produced from ethylene gas, over alumina solid phase catalysts, as part of the vast petrochemical industrial synthesis process.

ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

ffkiwi

[quote]ORIGINAL: AndyW

[Way, way back, I wondered WHY ether was so required in our diesel engines. With much tinkering, I found that diesels WILL run with no ether in the fuel. Lots of ether in the prime, though, helped a lot to get them started. ]

.....You're not the first to discover this Andy-a guy by the name of Robert Dulake wrote a comprehensive article in 'Aeromodeller' some time in 1986 about the use of etherless fuels-he too noted that while diesels would run on them (he was using PAW's IIRC) they would not start on them. He also experimented with various cooking oils as lubricants. Earlier still you find rferences in the 1950's-often in engine manufacturers' leaflets referring to 'etherless fuels' and something along the lines of "we do not recommend the use of etherless fuels in our engines due to the high compression settings required, and the strain this places on engine parts" ...or something similar-so etherless fuels were around then.

[Then, someone pointed out that kero and oil were not supposed to mix. And yet, I had no trouble. The answer was that I was using Klotz Benol. Something they did to their version of castor oil made it mix easily with kerosene. At least it did at room temperature. Near freezing, it would seperate but that took a while.]

........It occurs to me that castor oil, as I commented earlier-is largely a triglyceride of ricinoleic acid, (~85% or better) with a number of other minor fatty acid components. Ricinoleic acid has a functional hydroxl group in the C12 position (of the 18 carbon chain molecule) which makes it unusually polar as a molecule (in comparison with other fatty acid molecules of similar chain length). If this hydroxyl group was modified by the addition of a non polar group-such as through esterification-it would reduce the overall polarity, and allow much better miscibility with other non polar hydrocarbon solvents. It is quite likely that Klotz Benol and other racing castors may have been treated this way. Wikipedia mentions 'polyoxyethylated castor oil' eg 'Cremophor EL' as being used in the foodstuff industries. I wouldn't mind betting that the 'EL' stands for 'extreme lubricant'


ChrisM
'ffkiwi'

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

There are many forms of treated castor oils. There is an ester of castor oil that is used specifically to reduce carbon buildup in engines. Maxima publicizes the fact that they use it in their castor oil and I'm sure Klotz uses it even though they don't. However, Klotz appeared ignorant when I mentioned it to them in person at a trade show. This probably also helps the oils blend. Castor oil was used in virtually all aviation engines prior to the mid 1920's. I have no idea how they started engines cold in -20 weather.

Motorboy

I saw the book about aviation, there was a pic of the plane in winter, the engine in -20 was preheated by primus though the pipe with fabric cover over the engine before the engine was started.

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

I recently watched a video on youtube of a Taylorcraft being heated prior to starting in Alaska. I read Sir Roy Fedden's biography a couple months ago, and it talked about winter testing starting of engines in the cold. They were refrigerating the engines to do the testing so i don't think they were heating them up to start. But, this was in the 20's and large engines so starters where used.

SGC

Re the Castor, I remember reading , If Castor is heated to a specific temp and held there for a time , it modifies the molecule and results in an oil that mixes better with fuels other than methanol- petrochemicals , better. Also that if small amounts of VitE are added it slows/prevents the castor polimeriseing(forming laqures/varnish)
On Alternate oils, Gordon Burford allso sugested the use of cooking oils (no specific given) for better performance in diesels. I have found that Olive oil gives excelent results , it mixes with kerro without ether !!! Olive oil allthough haveing a lower room temperature viscosity, is more temperature stable than Castor, and at elevated temps(running temp) its viscosity is equal to or higher than castor- it has a lower rate of viscosity decline with temp. I feel its the lower cold viscosity that aids starting and its mixing ability to better throttling. Another benefit of Olive Oil lube is it removes carbon deposits and varnish leaveing a clean engine, hence my previous recomendation NOT to use in older well use engines that may be relying on the above to maintain compression.
Stewart

gkamysz

My Feedback: (19)

Where did you find a viscosity rating for olive oil at elevated temperatures? I've searched quite a bit and have not found anything.

merugo

Gregg, did you miss my olive oil viscosity measurements here in RCU?
ugo

gcb

I wonder how they coaxed the poor sob to fly an open cockpit in -20 weather.. [&o]

George