Grease

[Charles Kaiser]

Hallo Kameraden,
in the CRRC 2 is written on side 103 about the use of grease in conjunction of cleaning and preventing weapons from rust.

What is this grease?

I found the "Staufferfett" (Fett= grease), based on natural grease whitch was saponyfied with Calcium Hydroxide, made by Stauffer Chemicals in America. Was this old enough?

[Curt Schmidt]

Re: Grease

Hallo!

Keeping it Period...

Ideally, that is sperm oil or sweet oil rather than grease.

However, "grease" was also used as from beef tallow (for example, as recommended in Congdon's cavalry manual uisng beef marrow).

Or:

Rust on Guns.

In keeping a gun from rust always use animal oil and never let a gun remain rusty long. If a soldier wants to clean a rusty gun, he should first procure fine sand, which is easy obtained after a rain in water courses, mix it with oil, then scour all the rust off, if any rust remains it is apt to poison the iron and cannot be got off without great labor. Perspiration is a great enemy to iron; a soft tallow candle is good to prevent rust, and to kill rust first rub the rusty place with tallow, then put it in the sun shine, when it gets warm then rub the rust off, if the rust leaves a stain or holes always scour it out—lard oil is the best oil we can procure now. Always after a days shooting wash your gun out, wipe it dry inside and outside, then if the sun is shining put it in the sunshine and when warm wipe with a little oil; it is bad to oil the inside too much, for it will dampen the powder and render the gun useless until the charge is drawn; when the ball is drawn fill the barrel with water and let it remain for a quarter of an hour and then you can wash all out. One oiled rag can be used many times without adding oil to it, always prevent the air if possible, from getting inside of your rifle. I wish to give our soldiers as good advise [sic] as I can, hoping my advise [sic] will benefit them. Although old and not in the field, I wish to help as much as possible, and in a few days you will hear from me again.
H.
I fully endorse the above as my experience in rifle shooting, &c.
E. H. Rogers.

DAILY CONSTITUTIONALIST [AUGUSTA, GA], July 9, 1864, p. 2, c. 1

There is also the side discussion about "lard" or bacon grease from rations
(One complicated by modern chemical treated bacon with its salt(s) content).

And the side discussion as to what soldiers had access to at any particular moment.

;) :)

Tschuess.

Curt

[John E. Tobey]

Re: Grease

The most common lubricant was almost certainly some sort of oil; sutlers carried differents kinds in large quantities.

When horse-drawn units referred to "grease," they were talking about "axle grease," or "common grease." I've seen a couple of recipes for this stuff, but most of them include some sort of animal fat mixed with a little oil.

Needless to say, there was large amounts of the stuff found around campsites, and soldiers were quick to "requistion" it if they could.

The 156th NY was investigated in February of 1864 because they were suspected of stealing a whole barrel of it from the 19th Corps Commissary's wagon master. The Red River campaign put an end to the investigation.

Then there is this note from William Nichols of the 17th NY Battery: "pierce sold the grease to soldiers and we had none for our wheels so they got shinny [sic] guns as we sqealed acrost rebbledom[.]"

William Merrit wrote home that he used "leather grease" on his gun, whatever that was. I suspect, however, that when soldiers referred to "grease," they were usually talking about axle grease.

There are other anecdotes in the same vein -- as Curt has already pointed out, a lot depended on what the soldiers had access to.

Of course, when soldiers said something about "greasing their bayonets," they were talking about something entirely different!

John Tobey

[Charles Kaiser]

Re: Grease

Hallo Kameraden,
I knoww the Stauffergrease as an axle grease, made from animal and vegetable fat, there is only a German entry in Wikipedia about this, there was written that it was still used in the 1920's as Lubrication for waterpumps. That makes me hope, this was an old invention. Ok, as long there is no conformation nabout periodical correctness, i will use it only on my "Trabant"

Ok, I will visit my butcher and buy some suet respectively Beef tallow.

Sweet Oil, did it mean Olive Oil or Rape Oil as modern term or the described Glycerine in the same article of the CRRC 2?

[Charles Kaiser]

Re: Grease

I foundd something about sweet oil:

http://books.google.de/books?id=is-18v5Z_CoC&pg=RA1-PA552&dq=sweet+oil&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1840&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=1865&num=50&as_brr=0&as_pt=ALLTYPES#PRA1-PA552,M1

In this book from 1864 it is described as olive oil. Maybe sweet oil is a nickname by soldiers, because of the heavy sweetness of glycerin.