poulan bar oil

[trapper]

poulan pro bar oil on sale at menards 4.48 gallon.   any good?

[lxskllr]

I used it years ago. Seemed to work as well as anything. I buy whatever's cheapest, and if I had an opportunity to get some for $4.50/G, I'd buy several gallons. Cheapest I've ever gotten is $7/G. I use canola in the winter, and that's ~$5/G at walmart.

[trapper]

I dont buy what is cheapest han some with a lot of sludge in bottom of jug.  dont buy that any more thanks for fast reply

[lxskllr]

Dunno. Never had any with sludge. All I've used is PoulanPro and TractorSupply though.

[sawguy21]

I have never seen any with sludge either, I wonder what was in it. I don't fire the saws up much any more but when I do it's Stihl oil because that is what is readily available, I buy a bottle or two at a time.

[thecfarm]

I used poulan oil years ago. walmart had it cheap way back when. Every time I drove by a walmart I would go in and buy 4 gallons. I forgot how much it was than.
I use to buy TC oil on sale for $7. At one time I had 30 gallons ahead.  ;)
At under $5 I would be get my supply back up to 30 gallons again.  ;D

[Southside]

Last I checked Poulan didn't build their own refinery, so it's just private labeled. Most B+C oil is basically whatever is left over and some added tacifer, nothing fancy at all. 

[barbender]

All I ask of bar oil is that it's clean, and cheap. I have about 15 gallons of hydraulic oil I drained out of my skid steer that I'll be using. 

[sawguy21]

Will that stay on the chain long enough to do any good without a tackifier?

[lxskllr]

Everything stays wet with canola. No tackifier.

[barbender]

My firewood processor (Dyna) just uses hydraulic oil right out of the system to oil the bar. One of my buddies that has a Ponsse processor/harvester has run about everything through his bar oiler. He usually uses hydraulic drain oil, but he said what actually works best is used motor oil (other than it makes a mess). That's what lubes the best, I guess it would stand to reason that new motor oil might be better but he would never use that😁 I personally kind of think the tackifier is kind of useless, it can't keep the oil from flinging off of the chain at the speeds they're turning, especially on hydraulic bar saws. It's more important that the oil gets pushed in to where it needs to go in the first place, imo. I see that Stihl and Husky premium bar oil and just shake my head. $16 and some odd cents per gallon for the Stihl premium I looked at the other day. No thanks.

[Southside]

Now that you mention it my CTR 42 saw buck had a small hydraulic hose that would bleed off a little oil from the system to lube the bar.  The Fabtek head on my JD490 has a tank for bar oil, but why bother, it breaks enough hoses to keep the whole system permanently lubed in hydraulic oil.  

[Real1shepherd]

Using waste motor oil is a bad idea. It's full of metal particulates and acids/contaminants. They call it waste oil for a reason;it's supposed to be disposed of, not put back in machinery.

This was a big deal when I first started loggin', as there was not a specific bar oil yet. Lots of guys tried to make used motor oil work. Any brand bar oil will be leaps & bounds ahead of using waste motor oil.

In the over all scheme of things, the extra expense of bar oil shouldn't derail your enterprise. Bad place to cut corners. Use whatever the manufacturer of your wood processor says to use.

The Squeal shop here used to carry another brand of bar oil(two grades;summer/winter) and the Squeal product. Everyone(me included) bought the cheaper brand. Now, they lowered the price and only carry the Squeal product for $10/gal. The alternative if you're using a lot, is to go to a bulk plant and buy by the five gal bucket.


Kevin

[Iwawoodwork]

As I recall in the 1950's , 60's, not sure about the 7o's there was no bar oil, When working for Weyco the cutters could fill the bar oil jugs out  of the 55 gallon motor oil drums located on the different line docks. Back then and until about 6-7 years ago I used the cheapest recycled motor oil and also my old used motor oil on my saws with no apparent  negative affect, I was only cutting for personal use

[Real1shepherd]

It was the late 70's when I first heard about and used specific bar oil. We would go to a bulk plant and buy 5gal buckets of it. Before that we used new motor oil of specific weights and in the winter, we would cut those with a little diesel fuel.

Most pro users I knew found that running waste oil in their saws would eventually cause premature wear of their oilers. The wood you're cutting doesn't care, of course. Use whatever you want. I look it at it like stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. YMMV.

Kevin

[sawguy21]

X2 I remember loggers using crankcase drainings, I replaced a lot of seized and stripped oil pumps and no warranty. :D I never used my saws enough where chain oil would make or break me so used the best available. I won't abuse equipment.