What lubricants do you recomend? I need some to grease up the wheels on my engines and cars.
Lillen
Labelle 106 plastic compatible grease for gearbox’s & worm gears and labelles 102 oil for any metal to metal applications (side rods’ motor bearings etc.)
These both come highly recommended ,and may be found at most LHS that carry a good supply of model railroad products. Be careful of generic oils as some are not compatible with plastic and may damage drivegears in most locomtives.
And remember only use very small amounts …less is better.
Lillen since you will very likely have to send away for hobby lubes, I strongly recommend using automatic transmission fluid. Shell, or is it Castrol…I have forgotten, makes Dextron II and III, and either one will provide you with 1M years of lubrication in a single liter.
As the previous gentleman cautioned, one or two small drops only per location. What you can use is a medium-sized sewing needle. Cut the eye of the needle, the part through which the thread goes, in half so that the end of the needles looks like ------< Dip that part into a milliliter of the fluid and touch the end to the axle bearing.
What effect on plastics will this have?
Lillen
None whatsoever. ATF is safe with plastics and with your model paint. There are plastic parts inside an autotransmission, so the fluid is carefully engineered to be safe with plastics. I have lubed my last four purchases from BLI with it, and have had abslutely no issues.
The idea is not mine. About two years ago, a chemical engineer posted the idea and urged modellers to switch to it as a hobby lube. He had been using it for years with no ill effect. It has excellent lubrication qualities, as you may know, and it works on toy trains, too. What’s not to like? [:)]
I think we are a bit paranoid in our hobby. It is surely wise to be careful about what we use on our layouts and on our trains, but only a truly careless person would get oil, even a specific hobby oil, on his locomotive because it will affect the appearance. It will render a weathered locomotive shiny, for example. So, even if ATF were not suitable with plastics, I would still consider using it safely and carefully applied to the points where it should be.
It just so happens that it is safe.
I can see where the excellent lubricating properties of ATF would be great in place of the light oil (Labell 102), but I still feel that the heavier bodied 106 grease w/ teflon would work better in a gear case. The ultra thin ATF coating the gears may start to work it’s way out of the case coating things we don’t want.
Some trucks have a lot of lash in the design(or lack of design quality) of the gears, (Bachman, some IHC and especially Athearn) The Labell 106 actually allows these types to run smoother and quieter taking up some of the lash.
Re: What lubricant do you recomend?
A beer or two always helps.[:O]
Just for info, grease is oil with a carrier.
I like Labelle products. They have been working well for years for me. I do not think I have ever yet used one up. I read about the ATF after I already had Labelle products, but I am not sure I would have done any differently now, because I know what would happen sooner or later with me and an open quart container of anything…
I have three different lubricants I use. First I have a set of Labelles. It is a set of three that includes a tube of grease, and two different weight oils in the bottles with the needle point dispensers. The needle point bottles are worth the price of the set. One is a gear oil and the other is lighter weight for things like high speed bearings. I use the grease in high stress places like worm gears, the gear oil on gears, and the light oil on motor bearings, gear bearings, steam locomotive valve gear. If something starts squeeking soon after lubrication with the light stuff, that usually means it is under too much stress for the oil so I move up to the heavier gear oil.
My second lubricant is powdered graphite with molybdenum. I use this on normal wheel axles and bearings. I do not use it on axles that conduct electricity because it can catch fire (I cooked some turnout motors because I lubricated the contacts trying to get them to move more freely). I also use this on (inside the coupler box) Kadee couplers.
My third lubricant is similar to the Labelle light weight oil, except it is specifically designed to conduct electricity. My current bottle was made by Atlas, but I believe Bachmann also makes some. I use it on wheel axles and bearings that are conducting electricity, and on wheel or axle wipers that are picking up electricity.
Don’t lubricate something with graphite one time and a liquid the next time without totally cleaning in between. Talk about a mess.
NEVER use rust inhibitors or Water Displacement formulas for lubrication such as WD-40 or Amsoil MP. The “lubricant” eventually evaporates and they become a sticky mess collecting more than their fair share