I have extolled the qualities of Nano Oil for a couple of years. It does lubricate extremely well. HOWEVER!!! it is NOT compatible with all plastics!!!
I was talking to Geoff Baxter at Hollywood Foundries today and I happened to mention how happy I was with Nano Oil. He advised me to not use it any longer on anything where it might come into contact with plastic. He explained that he used to recommend it and sell it but after a short time he had drive systems “falling apart everywhere”. It will destroy plastic over time. He further suggested washing the Nano Oil off with alcohol and going back to LaBelle products.
EDIT: Geoff’s cautions refer to polystrene, but other similar plastics may be affected. He did say that Delrin didn’t seem to be affected.
Sorry to have mislead you. I hope you can save your stuff in time if you have used it.
I had noted the references to Nano oil over the years but never seemed to find the stuff and thus never gave it a try. Thanks for giving this warning. Maybe you should re open those old threads (at the risk of annoying some folks) and repeat it there.
Does he have a specific timeline to failure? Also has he reported the failures to the manufacturer (of the nano-oil). The website still says its plastic safe.
I had been going by the word of the Nano Oil mfrs’ that it is plastic compatible. Apparently that is not true, at least not in “all” cases.
I have not had anything that I own fail. I’m not willing to take the chance that Geoff’s experience was a fluke. There is too much money involved to say nothing of having to rebuild the locomotives.
I’m going by the word of a manufacturer who has used and sold Nano Oil in the past. He is Geoff Baxter, owner of Hollywood Foundry in Australia. He makes Bull Ant drives. He explained that after he had been recommending Nano Oil for some time he started to experience significant numbers of failures with his drive mechanisms. The plastic frames were cracking and falling apart. He contacted Nano Oil directly but they refused to admit that there was a problem, and they refused to refund his stock of Nano Oil. When Geoff stopped using Nano Oil the problem ceased.
The choice is yours obviously. You can take a chance and continue to use it or you can stop. I’m not willing to take that chance, and more importantly, I thought I owed it to those to whom I had recommended Nano Oil to make them aware of the problem. If people experience failures as a result of following my initial recommendation, and I had not issued a warning, I would be remiss.
He did not give me a time line for the failures. Sorry, I re-read his e-mail and he said “several months”. He did approach the manufacturer and they refused to admit there was a problem. The problem started after he started to use Nano Oil and it stopped after he stopped using it.
As it happens I have never heard of it. The thought came to mind, if you still have some and some scraps of various plastics around, run a test and let folks know what you find. Obviously long term results will take a while, but some things happen quickly with plastics and solvents.
Unfortunately I’m already conducting an experiment so to speak. I have used Nano Oil on all sorts of things. I’m going to cut the experiment short though, and clean it all out. That will be a PITA!
So far, I have experienced excellent results as well. However, as I responded on another thread, I trust my source and I would be remiss to not report his experiences given that I have strongly recommended Nano Oil in the past.
I don’t use the product. So I don’t have a dog in this fight. But if its as bad as ‘‘one’’ person is claiming, would we all not heard about it long ago?
I suppose a person could put a nano-bit of the type of plastic Geoff uses into some Nano-oil and see for one’s self. Might even heat it up a bit to speed the reaction. If a person was a user of such oil. And I am one who isn’t. Nor do I use Geoff’s product.
I wonder how Nano-oil is working out in Athearn gearboxes. Surely somone here would know something about that.
I sent an e-mail back to Geoff and asked for a few more details. It turns out that he did exactly what you are suggesting. He placed two Bull Ant frames in oil, one in Nano Oil and the other in LaBelle oil. After being in the oils for about a week the Nano Oil frame crumbled like cheese. The other one was not affected.
He also explained that it was not just a few of his frames that failed, it was 100% of the frames where Nano Oil had been used.
Just to indicate what sort of businessman Geoff is, he recalled all the drives where Nano Oil had been applied at the factory and rebuilt them all at his expense.
He did say that the Nano Oil did not seem to affect Delrin.
Plastic is a somewhat generic term, as we all know there are many different types or chemical compositions of “Plastics”.
I’ve used Amazing Goop to glue can motors in my locomotives for over ten years and never had any chemical interaction with the Plastics. I had a fellow model railroader contact me with bad news, he used some Goop to attach some weights inside a freight car and it melted the plastic floor of the car. I had never had any problems with Goop in over ten years, it is my go to glue for many projects.
About a year later I too experienced a melting problem with a plastic structure melting under Goop. Since that time I’m very carful with all adhesives as well as lubricating oils and grease.
I have used Nano Oil from 10 to 12 years on my plastic drives without any problems. That doesn’t mean that its safe for all plastics, it just works OK with my Rivarossi, Athearn, MDC and Model Power plastics.