[TheForge] oil temps (one more time)

[Andrew Vida]

James Binnion wrote:

> Something to think about, these vegetable oils are a complex
> combination of fatty acids each one with a different boiling point,
> flash point etc. As you heat them to extreme temperatures over
> prolonged time periods they are going to change structure from
> oxidation and evaporation etc and you will have a different oil than
> when you started. I don't really know what all the changes would do
> but I bet you will have to change oil fairly often. The good thing
> about the Park oil is it is engineered and tested to operate at those
> temps for prolonged periods. I know it is expensive and may be beyond
> the budget but there is a reason that commercial heat treaters are
> using it rather than say soybean oil because if a plain vegetable oil
> was just as good or nearly so then the commercial guys would not pay
> the price of the Park oil either. Just something to think about

Seems we come around full circle once again to this idea of getting the 
right tools for doing a job.  IMO if your heat treat is important to 
you, spend the money and get the proper tools for doing the job.  I have 
found that in but a very few cases this turns out to be the least costly 
way to go.  The problem people have is in not knowing how to see the 
real costs of things.  Even large Fortune 100 companies to which I have 
consulted have a hard time with this.  So-called "hidden" costs can 
drive overall costs through the roof.  Not all such costs are in fact 
hidden - they are only hidden from those who do not know how to find 
them, and knife makers, blacksmiths, and all manner of such small 
business people suffer terribly from this inability and because of it.

One really needs to get down to the brass tacks of competently analyzing 
such costs in order to cut through that teeth-grinding gut impulse to 
say no to higher immediate price tags.  It is a VERY difficult habit to 
break, and this is understandable.  I look at a 5 gallon pail of 
synthetic oil for $400++ and then to a $30 pail of soybean oil and my 
own impulse is to say "screw that" to the former.  But if a careful 
analysis is conducted on cost v. time, plus all the quality 
characteristics to which Jim refers, it can easily be the case that the 
higher initial cost represents the lower cost solution, overall.  This 
is why I have recommended in the past that small business people take 
several basic business classes including financial accounting (not AT 
ALL what most people think it is), managerial accounting (tools for 
conducting just these sorts of analyses), and perhaps micro-economics 
(perhaps a bit of a stretch for knife makers, but interesting stuff in 
its own rite).

For example, a linear model for finding optimal costing solutions can be 
cobbled up in Excel, and it WILL show you the optimal cost path.  One 
can get a little fancier and add "factors" for quality - essentially 
coefficients to drive "cost" up or down depending on non direct-cost 
related factors to account for how things like quality of a heat treat 
affects a broader notion of "cost".  Shitty heat treat costs the 
business in terms of reputation and, ultimately, that boils down to cash.

I've said it before and I will say it again (go ahead, git yer rifles 
out): don't be afraid of tooling/consumables costs.  They represent (or 
should) a comparatively small proportion of the overall cost to produce 
most products.  Purchase what you need in order to do the job right.  In 
most cases you will be using those things over and over again.  In cases 
of one-off need, you have to include that cost in the price of the 
product and if that is unacceptable to the customer, tough.  Nobody 
should be in business to subsidize customer wants and wishes.  That's 
just crazy.