What oils did they use in the past?

[Incroyable]

What sort of oils did they use during the late 18th to late 19th century? Were they petroleum derivatives or oils processed from Cetaceans?

Did precision instruments like chronometers use different more refined oils or was it all the same given the technological constraints of the era?

 

[novicetimekeeper]

vegetable and animal fats.

 

[gmorse]

Hi Jeffrey,

One of the finest oils for chronometers was porpoise head oil, (not approved of under CITES regulations!).

Regards,

Graham

 

[Incroyable]

Hi Jeffrey,

One of the finest oils for chronometers was porpoise head oil, (not approved of under CITES regulations!).

Regards,

Graham

Fascinating.

I found this article referring to how porpoise head oil was the finest oil in its day:

History: Sperm Whale Oil | cherrybalmz

www.cherrybalmz.com

When did the transition to synthetic oils begin? I imagine the lubricants made today are miles ahead of what they could have imagined in the past.

 

[thesnark17]

The only advantages modern lubricants have over whale oil (besides the fact that you don't have to kill whales to get them) are that they have a longer life in the watch, and fail differently at end-of-life. Whale oil will only last a few years (service interval 3 years for chronometers), while modern lubricants can last a decade (or at least, so says Rolex!). Whale oil causes excessive friction after failure - usually leading to a stopped watch or poor timekeeping - while modern lubricants tend to simply fade to nothing. In a certain way, that can be a curse, since people have no obvious indicator that the oil is not lubricating any more.

Whale oil has a massive advantage in wear protection. I saw a chart at one point that compared modern Moebius oils to whale oil, and the whale oil was capable of cushioning/lubricating under more than four times the static load.

The search for a whale oil substitute has been ongoing since at least the early 1900s. Whale oil was expensive, particularly in grades good enough for watch lubrication, and there was concern among the knowledgeable that whales were being overhunted and would eventually become uneconomic as a resource (as eventually happened). It would appear that usable substitutes were on the market as early as the 1920s, with good substitutes in the 1940s and '50s. The transition away from whale oils appears to have occurred gradually in the '50s through '70s. By 1972 (US)/1986 (worldwide), whale hunting was largely illegal, ending the supply of oil for those still using it.

The best whale oil came from the pilot whale (a dolphin species that was originally called blackfish). They were hunted at Cape Cod to supply horological oil. Here is some ancillary information.

https://spo.nmfs.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/pdf-content/mfr854.pdf

From the hunted to the protected

As we came over the sand dunes, as far as we could see there were large blackfish. Most were dead, some were still flopping, and there was quite a crowd of people. Nye men had sharp instruments on lo…

www.southcoasttoday.com

Pilot whale

iwc.int

 

[Dave Coatsworth]

An early Nye ad...

 

[Incroyable]

When old watches are gummy with oil, would that be whale oil or the older synthetics?

 

[thesnark17]

Typically that would be whale oil. I don't know if the older synthetics gum up, but I've never heard of it. Of course, you would always assume it was whale oil, since whale oil will do it 100% of the time...

 

[Bruce W Sims]

OK...serious question.....
With the growing number of whales being found beached around the world. Might there be a rendering process to take advantage of the carcass, or might this stir public protests? Thoughts?

 

[Incroyable]

OK...serious question.....
With the growing number of whales being found beached around the world. Might there be a rendering process to take advantage of the carcass, or might this stir public protests? Thoughts?

I think I read in one of these articles that the whales needed to be killed alive in order for the oil to be of sufficient quality?

 

[thesnark17]

Well, the 50 or so that stranded on Cape Cod recently were alive at the point when they were beached, but it's still against federal law to do anything with them.

I understand that the Faroe Islands still do a pilot whale kill from time to time. If you really want the oil, that's probably the only place left in the world to get it legally. Though I doubt it's legal to import it...

 

[Incroyable]

Japan is also one of the few whaling nations left.

It's been quite controversial over the years. Since Japan also has a very sophisticated horological collecting community I wonder if some of those whales find their way into locally produced artisanal lubricants?

Whaling in Japan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org