In short, I have a small chainsaw powered sawmill. Now, I'll not try to defend the chainsaw as environmentally sensitive, nor sustainable. I'll leave that be for now.
But the bit that I'm stuck on right now, is that running this sawmill generates a lot of sawdust. Some folks will argue that chainsaw mills suck because of the kerf, and bandmills are better due to the smaller kerf. Again, I don't want to argue. On wide planks, my chainsaw mill gives me really flat and accurate cuts. Bandmills wander a bit. So -to me- it's a question of do I want to leave the sawdust at the milling site, or at the planer later. Machs nix. But with the thought of composting all that really nice and very fine sawdust, it occurs to me that the bar-oil content is an issue. So, no big deal I think, I'll just use this fancy environmentally friendly vegetable oil based bar oil. But being the person I am, I decided to critique this concept. Seems that all commercial 'environmental' bar oils are canola based. And even though one isn't supposed to, it's possible to get that bar and chain pretty hot. 'cooked' canola oil doesn't seem like the stuff with which I want to amend my food garden soil. So I start looking at other vegetable oils, since these products are used in forestry all over the world where forestry is a more careful practice than here in the US, and I see that all over europe and parts of africa, vegetable based bar oils are the standard. But is this stuff really superior in an environmental sense than ole dinosaur bones? Esp when it's been heated/cooked? What is a good vegetable oil lubricant that isn't a GMO product? Any and all clues deeply appreciated. . -- --- Chip Mefford -------------------- Before Enlightenment; chop wood carry water After Enlightenment; chop wood carry water --------------------- Public Key http://www.well.com/user/cpm _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
