As a Marine Engine Lubricant

As has already been observed, vegetable oils are superior to mineral oils in their ability to cling to metal surfaces, particularly where the surface is being washed by steam or water. When ships were powered by steam, vegetable oils were an essential item in formulating lubricants for their engines. Rapeseed oil was the much preferred oil. 

The first commercial production of rapeseed in Canada provided the raw material for the first processing of Canadian produced rapeseed oil. The 1943 production of Canadian rapeseed was crushed, refined and blown at the W. R. Carpenter (Canada) plant in Hamilton, Ontario. The production of subsequent years was handled at a plant built and operated by J. Gordon Ross in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, under the name of Prairie Vegetable Oils Ltd. 

The bulk of the oil was used for lubricants. The crude oil was alkali refined, bleached, and blown. Blown or oxidized oils are those in which polymerization Is produced by passing a stream of air through the oil at a temperature of 95°-120°C for several hours. As oxidation progresses the viscosity of the oil rises and the specific gravity increases. It is this thickening 

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