On Tue, 13 Feb 2018 20:50:03 -0600, Ignoramus14057
wrote:

I bought a very large geat cutting machine for scrap. This machine is
sitting in a pit full of oil. I spoke to the person who maintained it
and he says that the oil is only lube oil and NOT cutting oil.

I have a oil fired furnace Clean Burn CB2800. I burn all my oil,
mostly used hydraulic oil, in it to save on natural gas costs. The
instruction to the furnace says "DO NOT USE CUTTING OIL". I am not
sure why exactly, either the furnace will be damaged or due to
environmental regulations.

Someone else from the company said that cutting oil "might" be in it.

How can I tell? Is smell a good enough indicator? Is there any easy
test that I can subject the oil to?

I am talking at least a ton of oil if not several tons. And I need all
that oil if I can burn it.

Thanks

I think that the test you want is for sulfur. Some of the newer
cutting oils have other ingredients that may or may not be a probleem.
For example, I have no idea what triethanolamine is, but DoALL cutting
oil contains it. Likewise, hexylene glycol, which is there in tiny
amounts.

But it's likely that sulfur is the big one. Also, lard oil leaves
gummy residue when it oxidizes. That may be it, too.

But what you're really looking for is an indicator that a material is
or is not cutting oil. There's no assurance of this, but most
dedicated cutting oils have contained sulfur for decades. The ones
that don't are more recent forumulations.

Maybe someone knows how to test for sulfur. There used to be a test
that involved a silver compound of some kind.

Good luck.

--
Ed Huntress