White lead & castor oil on prop shaft?

While attempting to distract myself from 8 hours of filing documents
on Friday, I Youtubed up the Republic / Air Corps training film on how
to field assemble the P-47 Thunderbolt. (Where I work, that's called
multi-tasking.) In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey

On Aug 20, 3:58 pm, wright1902glider wrote:
... In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.


My first thought was that the mixture might be some
sort of never seize, but then I remembered that white lead
(lead oxide I think) is a 'drier', a chemical that was added
to linseed oil or oil paints to initiate polymerization.

So now I'm thinking that this was some sort of adhesive, or
maybe an anti-corrosion coating like a very hard version
of cosmoline. I think Japaning, a predecessor to baked
enamel paint also used white lead.

Anyhow, linseed oil and oil based paints still use driers,
cobalt salt are typically used instead of lead compounds.

'Japan drier' is _something_ dissolved in solvent which
can be added to oil finishes to speed the hardening. It
is still sold today, must not contain white lead. So
my next guess would be that castor oil and Japan drier
might be an acceptable substitute. I've seen Japan drier
in catalogs and on the shelf at the BORG.

Knowing _why_ they coated the shaft, and what parts of
the shaft, would help.

FWIW, you CAN get white lead but you'd probably
have to order it from a company that sells chemicals
in general as opposed to just picking it up at a hardware
store or paint store.

--

FF

On Aug 20, 12:02 pm, Fred the Red Shirt
wrote:
On Aug 20, 3:58 pm, wright1902glider wrote:

... In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.


Fred,

I worked for Sherwin-Williams for about 7 years but I never did figure
out what was in that can of Japan dryer. It was in some sort of
solvent.

In the film, I can't really see which part of the prop shaft they
smeared the goop on. The film did mention using light oil on a few
parts. My guess is that its either the splines, or the tapered
section. The plane in question was an early model and still had the
"razorback" canopy. They were installing an electroc prop b/c they had
to remove the brush box, and clean the brush contact ring and retainer
before installing the prop. I remember reading that the P-47s used at
least 2 different props depending on model, but its been 20 years
since I read that book.

Harry

wright1902glider wrote:
before installing the prop.


Fred,

I worked for Sherwin-Williams for about 7 years but I never did figure
out what was in that can of Japan dryer. It was in some sort of
solvent.


1,2,4-Trimethylbenzene 000095-63-6 10-15
Cobalt 2-ethylhexanoate 000136-52-7 20-25
2-Ethylhexanoic acid 000149-57-5 1-5
Manganese naphthenate 001336-93-2 5-10
Stoddard solvent 008052-41-3 50-55
Manganese 2-ethylhexanoate 015956-58-8 30-35
Zirconium 2-ethylhexanoate 022464-99-9 50-55
Cobalt naphthenate 061789-51-3 20-25
Naphtha, petroleum, hydrotreated heavy 064742-48-9 40-45
Solvent naphtha, petroleum, light aromatic 064742-95-6 35-40

"wright1902glider" wrote in message
ups.com...
While attempting to distract myself from 8 hours of filing documents
on Friday, I Youtubed up the Republic / Air Corps training film on how
to field assemble the P-47 Thunderbolt. (Where I work, that's called
multi-tasking.) In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrUMT1d3C4

"Blueskies" wrote in message ...

"wright1902glider" wrote in message
ups.com...
While attempting to distract myself from 8 hours of filing documents
on Friday, I Youtubed up the Republic / Air Corps training film on how
to field assemble the P-47 Thunderbolt. (Where I work, that's called
multi-tasking.) In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrUMT1d3C4



Looks like they used the mixture as an anti-seize compound...

On Aug 20, 6:08 pm, "Blueskies" wrote:
"Blueskies" wrote in m...

"wright1902glider" wrote in message
n...
Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrUMT1d3C4

Wow. I especially like the part where "about fifty men"
install the wing.


Looks like they used the mixture as an anti-seize compound...


If white lead will harden castor oil then I would suppose the
opposite--that it was used as a thread-locking compound.

But if it does not harden, then I agree, anti-seize.

--

FF

"Fred the Red Shirt" wrote in message
oups.com...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkrUMT1d3C4

Wow. I especially like the part where "about fifty men"
install the wing.


Looks like they used the mixture as an anti-seize compound...


If white lead will harden castor oil then I would suppose the
opposite--that it was used as a thread-locking compound.

But if it does not harden, then I agree, anti-seize.

--

FF


Looked like there was a separate locking gizmo to ensure the prop stayed put...

Only ten men to put the prop on ;-)

Looks like they used the mixture as an anti-seize compound...



White lead used to be a wonderful anti-sieze outlawed many years back. I
expect I'm showing my age having used it in the past. About the same era,
carbon tet was used in fire extinguishers. :-)

Paul
N1431A
KPLU

On Mon, 20 Aug 2007 08:58:17 -0700, wright1902glider
wrote:

While attempting to distract myself from 8 hours of filing documents
on Friday, I Youtubed up the Republic / Air Corps training film on how
to field assemble the P-47 Thunderbolt. (Where I work, that's called
multi-tasking.) In the film, they describe coating the prop shaft of
the R-2800 with the "perscribed mixture" of white lead and castor oil
before installing the prop.

Just out of curiousity, how would someone comply with this procedure
now? Castol oil is easy enough to get, but white lead? Substitutes?
And what exactly does the white lead do? Does it act as a packing or
anti-corosive?

I've found that when restoring or reproducing vintage things,
attempting to find the correct materials is a real challenge, if not
impossible. When I built my Wright machine, the only easy materials to
find were the steel rod, sheet, and wire.

Harry Frey


I'm going to guess as a packing. The only other use of white lead that
I've heard of is for filling the weave on the canvas of a canoe before
painting.