Recent content by Tom NJ

Some may not find this humorous from an environmental standpoint, but it gave me a giggle. I was shopping online for some furnace filters, and after pricing them at the usual venders like Amazon and Walmart I was surprised to find them at a lower price on Chewy.com, the pet food site! Since my...

Many of the synthetics of the early & mid 70s (Mobil 1 excepted) were based entirely on esters. With that much competing polarity and depending on engine design, these oils sometimes delayed the ZDDP from establishing its protective film in newly rebuilt engines during break-in, leading to cam...

Wife does the dozen flower beds and I do the vegetables. The garlic crop is nearing maturity, and under the row cover is broccoli & cauliflower.

Congrats! The freedom is intoxication!

My room was robbed in Moscow in 1990. The hotel rooms had skeleton keys, and someone entered the room next to mine and climbed out the their window and into mine. Took my briefcase which had a couple of hundred dollars in it, two suits, and a pair of shoes. It also had my passport and visa...

Thanks, I had not heard that. But then I have been retired for 17 years so I am out of touch with toxicity classifications, and no longer formulating lubricants (except in my head).

Likewise for TPPT. I used it in a high temperature oven chain oil and ran the formulation through multiple oxidation & corrosion stability tests run 72 hours @ 425°F. All passed with flying colors, and I smelled the used oil for any sulfur odor - there was none. The formulation went...

So long as the temperatures are not too high that's not a bad combination. DIDA may be a bit thin at 3.6 cSt @ 100°C and it would need some additional additives, like anti-oxidants and corrosion inhibitors. TPPT is what I had in mind for anti-wear/EP. A POE base may provide a lifetime oil...

I agree a low viscosity may be best depending on the load and engine design, but the POEs used in jet turbine oils are not ideal for this application. The esters used in jet oils are constructed with high percentages of short chain fatty acids, mainly C5 at 40-55%, in order to meet the low...

I'm sure most of you here know this, but for those that don't... I am the treasurer of our local food bank, and one of our donors advised us he wanted to make a $50,000 donation :D:D:D, but in the form of stock. We quickly opened a corporate brokerage account at Fidelity and he had his broker...

I hold some physical silver but not gold - hard to buy groceries with $2,400 eagles if needed. My positions in gold are paper - GLD and GDX. Nice and liquid if I decide to pocket a spike.

Lots of heavy sword rattling coming from the Middle East these days, even throwing around the "N" word (nuclear). More frequent F-15 flyovers here in VA as well, presumably from Seymour Johnson AFB. Maintaining my total portfolio overweight in energy (16%), gold (9%), and cash (11%).

Good question. I believe deleting the cookies may affect your saved log in information, but I'd wait for a better answer from someone more knowledgeable. Deleting the Temporary Internet Files is harmless - I do it all the time. Not sure about the Browsing History. If you use the "Custom...

I've read that esters are being looked at for EVs but have not yet seen what ester chemistry is of interest. Do you happen to know the ester chemistry? As a start I would be looking at low viscosity esters for cooling efficiency as well as low polarity and ashless additives. Re the additives...

There's a sucker born every minute. And there are a lot of evil people in the world actively working to take their money.