Lubrication oils

[Bogstandard]

As a general rule, if you have no specific lubricants mentioned for your machine.

Light hydraulic oil with an ISO 32 in the name, say Tellus 32, for gearboxes. This is a thinnish oil with no tack in it.

Slideway oils usually have an ISO 68 in their name designation. These are a tacky oil, designed to stick to the ways so that you don't end up with metal to metal contact anywhere.

For everything else, general purpose lubricating oil, NOT WD40 or 3 in 1, they are for door hinges. This is used normally for going into the little ball oilers or lubricating cups and holes on your machines, unless they feed slideways, in which case use slideway oil in them.

I always over lubricate my machines. It does make them look filthy after a short while, but at least I know things are not going to suffer because of lack of lubrication.
I think that 20 squid spent on lubricating oils per year is much better than hundreds for replacing worn out parts.

In the UK, slideway and gen purpose oil can be obtained reasonably cheaply from here, go almost to the bottom. A litre should normally last at least a year.

http://www.chronos.ltd.uk/acatalog/Oils.html


John

[Mayhem]

(03-30-2012, 01:52 AM)Bogstandard Wrote: ...I always over lubricate my machines. It does make them look filthy after a short while, but at least I know things are not going to suffer because of lack of lubrication...

I couldn't agree more John

[EdK]

Sounds like a good plan. The only deviation I take is that for general lubrication such as the change gears and leads screws I use Vactra #2 way oil. Since I use it on the lathe and mill ways I already have plenty of it.

Ed

[Bogstandard]

Ed,

For metal change gears, you can't go far wrong with the cans of spray grease used for lubricating mo'sickle chains. It sticks like the proverbial to a blanket, and stays where it is put, unlike oil, even slideway, which will get thrown off.

Personally, but bear in mind I have never had them, I would not lubricate plastic change gears, purely because you don't know what sort of chemical reaction you will get, and it could in fact weaken the gears. I suppose somewhere, someone might have come up with a lubricant for them.


John

[EdK]

(03-30-2012, 09:56 AM)Bogstandard Wrote: Ed,

For metal change gears, you can't go far wrong with the cans of spray grease used for lubricating mo'sickle chains. It sticks like the proverbial to a blanket, and stays where it is put, unlike oil, even slideway, which will get thrown off.

Personally, but bear in mind I have never had them, I would not lubricate plastic change gears, purely because you don't know what sort of chemical reaction you will get, and it could in fact weaken the gears. I suppose somewhere, someone might have come up with a lubricant for them.


John

John,

Isn't the grease more apt to catch and hold onto swarf, unlike oil? Like you, I over oil my lathe, including the gears. I check the gears and give them a shot of oil before using the lathe. It's surprising how well the way oil stays on the gears. But then I usually tend to run my lathe slower than recommended.

My mini-lathe has plastic gears and I use that white lithium grease on it. I've been doing that for about 12 years and none of the gears look any different from that day I bought the lathe. I think they are nylon gears but I'm not positive.

Good information John.

Ed

[Mayhem]

Picked up some ISO32 and I was surprised at how thin it was. I actually had to check that it wasn't water, as it is clear!

I was given a couple of cans of open gear spray and tried it out recently when threading. I thought it was good and quietened the gear train noise quite a bit. I plan to make a cover for my gears and they are covered whenever the lathe is not in use. Fortunately the gears are far enough away from the chuck that I am not getting chips back there. I am planning on making a box to store my change gears in, so they stay clean between changes. The only place I need to oil is the shafts that the change gears and the tumbler gears run on.

[Hopefuldave]

Mayhem Wrote:Picked up some ISO32 and I was surprised at how thin it was. I actually had to check that it wasn't water, as it is clear!

Heh, Holbrook model C's with plain spindle bearings use ISO *5*...

The current "best fit" is LHM hydraulic fluid (used in Citroen and old Rolls-Royce suspension and brakes) diluted 50:50 with paraffin!

Dave H. (the other one)

[Mayhem]

(04-13-2012, 01:47 PM)Hopefuldave Wrote: Heh, Holbrook model C's with plain spindle bearings use ISO *5*...

This was matched to the oil specified by Kondia for use in the x-feed gearbox and spindle/back gears.

[Bogstandard]

Ed,

Just to answer your query about swarf sticking to gears.

Because I haven't used open gears for many years, I had forgotten completely about that problem, but when I used to use my old Myford ML2, which did have open gears, I never found it a problem, as chips never seemed to go towards that direction.

Mayhem,

I am no super expert on lubrication, but in my years of maintenance work, properties of lubricants was always in the back of my mind, just in case there was no literature for the given gearbox. Almost all factories that I went into had a drum of thin hydraulic oil (even though no hydraulics were used in the place), and a drum of a thick Hypoid type gear oil. These two items would cover most gearboxes in use, and could get you out of the crap when nothing else was available, usually in the middle of the night.

You said that the ISO 32 was very thin, which might seem odd for gearbox lubrication, but when you look at the oil's properties, and where it will be used, it becomes a little clearer.

The main property of an hydraulic fluid is it's ability to resist compression (in theory, you can't compress a liquid, but it practice it does happen).

Now look at your geared head lathe.

Some splash lubrication is required, so a thin oil is required to achieve that. A thicker oil would be used in a sump where no splash lubrication is needed, it is transferred by the gears themselves, say as in an automobile gearbox or differential.
Then the properties of the oil comes into effect, sitting between the teeth of the gears, it cannot be compressed, so metal to metal contact shouldn't occur, but in practice it does, but only a tiny bit.

A very simple breakdown as to what is required, but it seems that your ISO 32 is spot on for the job.


John

[Mayhem]

John, you are correct. The x-feed gearbox holds a little oil in the bottom section where the shaft bearings and thrust bearing and the lower gears are located. The majority of the gears rely upon splash lubrication.