Which tool to lube mini lathe?

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

In my case it is my ignorance borne out of a thrifty, ne tight up bringing.

As a teenager I was party to the building and running of a large RC steam powered vessel powered by a double ten. Stuart Turner Steam oil dutifully went in the displacement lubricator, long since used tins of Duckham 20W-50 served to wastefully lubricate the plain bearings and parts of the engine, such was the quantity of this stuff we had.

I never thought to ask.

I just thought that oil might minimize the risk of the machined faces of my machines from rust.

Next time I am in a motor factors I’ll pick up some Iso 32. Its only taken me 45 years to ask!

[Clive FosterParticipant @clivefoster55965]

Placing single layer of thinnish non fluffy cloth over the ball oiler and pushing the pump can delivery nozzle onto it generally creates enough of a seal on the surround for the oil to go into the oiler rather than round it. The oil pushes through thin cloth just fine.

Needs steady pressure not fast pumping or it will spurt everywhere. Also works on open hole oilers. Hard bit is getting the oil can spout on dead square.

I have a piece of old cotton sheet for this.

These days I only have 3 ball oilers and 3 oil holes to deal with so proper solution would be nice but not essential. If I ever build an American Eagle style can or two, as I’ve been threatening to do for years for other reasons, I’ll sort something better. Otherwise the job backlog means life is too short.

Clive

 

[Don CoxParticipant @doncox80133]

I have several valvespout oilers, all of significant age now, which I use on my Myfords and Pultras.  I initially inherited two and then bought a couple more from eBay.  They have very small nozzles, small enough to trip the balls off of their seats in the button oilers as fitted to early Myfords and on the “grease nipple” type ones too, it is possible to very accurately deliver oil under moderate pressure where it’s needed.

A modern equivalent is available under the name of Pressol 0684, my latest Valvespout cost me £12 on eBay.  Despite appearances the plastic squeezy containers are very durable and the nozzles can be closed when not in use to prevent spills.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

One of the best oil guns that I have ever found is a Reilang. Pricey, but does not leak, and works at sorts of strange angles. Ultimately cheaper than lower intial cost alternatives.

I use cheap motor oil, ‘cos it is cheap and has fewer additives. (At bour speeds, we are unlikely to need the high spec additives in top mof the brange motor oils, which may, as already said, do as much harm as good)

With bregards to mgrease on a minin mlathe. Possibly, the only place need would be on the plastic gears, and even then, might worry in case some additive might soften the gear.

If converted to metal changewheel, a lottle grease would probably be suitable.

Otherwise no grease used anywhere else.

I fitted ball oilers to the Leadscrew bearings on mine, since it did not have any.

Howard

 

[Paul McDonoughParticipant @paulmcdonough43628]

The more I read the more I suspect I don’t oil or grease my machines enough

Note to self, grease the gears and oil the leadscrew bearing this weekend

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

Not just my opinion, but according to the late George Thomas, change gears only require a few drops of oil at most every time the lathe is used. In reality and even during single point thread cutting, those change gears will see fairly light loads in comparison to most other situations where gearing is used. And I don’t use grease on the gear teeth on mine for the exact same reasons I don’t use grease else where on my lathe. For lathes with enclosed gear boxes, I’ve yet to see any that ever used grease in them, so by simple logic, oil is what your supposed to use. The few drops of oil I do use make hardly any mess at all. Prior to reading GHT’s thoughts, I was over oiling my own change gears by a lot, and yes that does get thrown everywhere. But now I just keep a folded rag under the change gears and anything that might finally drip off, that rag will catch most of it. I will use more oil on any bushings or shafts those gears rotate on and do so much more often and simply wipe off anything excess for the obvious reasons.

I also think that all of the machine tool manufacturer’s do a rather poor job of detailing any and in my opinion, non optional preventative maintenance. Our manual machine tools certainly aren’t immune to that zero maintenance. Every year or so or any time the gibs or or feed nuts might require an adjustment, I pull those items apart on either the lathe or mill for a though solvent wash of those slides, feed screws and nuts, re-lubricate manually, and then do those adjustments. And that includes the same for those lathe change gears. Once you’ve done it a few times it really doesn’t take that long. Any dark or black oil simply indicates a couple of things. On slide ways and feed screws, your probably not oiling often enough, and it’s also highly contaminated. All that does is greatly accelerate the wear rates that inevitably happen. Again GHT mentions pulling apart his Super 7 lathe after every time he went through a session of turning cast iron. I also learned the hard way that any Morse taper tooling needs to be properly maintained, burrs, dings or even worse, rusted tool shanks on that tooling should never ever be used in those high precision tapers.

Fwiw, and going by what I see on Youtube, many think nothing of machining seriously rusted steel or castings. After all it’s going to be machined off anyway. That’s true, however if anyone cares to check on line, that rust consists of a certain amount of a rudimentary form of carbide that is much harder than the parent metal it was formed on. Even with hardened lathe beds, it can and will embed into the softer metal used on the carriage’s ways and the other slides. Mixed with that lube oil, you now have an excellent lap. Since learning that, I now wire wheel as much of that rust off as possible. Even then or any time I’m using abrasives on the lathe I’ll generally cover those bed ways or any other exposed slide surface with a few cents worth of aluminum cooking foil and throw it away when the jobs done. It’s cheap and stays in place if you form it to the surface being protected.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

As an Apprentice, what was drummed into me was that a clean machine was a safe machine. The lst ten minutes of each day were devoted to cleaning the machine.

So swarf, rust, cast iron dust, etc are removed quite frequently, for the very reasons set out above.

Howard

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, you can always make one to suite your needs, I made this one, which was along the lines of Morgens Klide’s design, which was published in MEW 220. You could make one a bit larger and even make different spouts to get to the awkward places.

I actually made two, one of which is a show piece, and the other one I use.

Regards Nick.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Engine oil will not keep the rust off , if you use iso32 it will.

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Engine oil will not keep the rust off , if you use iso32 it will.

Why’s that?

I’ve not noticed that the anti-rust properties of Engine Oil are inferior to ISO32.   Neither is intended to be anti-rust, though both will keep air and water away from metal.

The grade of Engine Oil might make a difference because the posh varieties contain performance additives not intended to keep a bog-standard lathe in best condition, and might actually be bad for it.    For that reason, the older simple engine oil grades are recommended for tools – older grades are less likely to contain an additive that reacts badly to being splashed on a machine tool.

Same problem with ISO32, which is also likely to contain additives.  Though Hydraulic Oil not getting hot, makes it likely one of them is anti-rust, to protect the hydraulic system.  This is why I prefer ISO32 as a general purpose machine tool lubricant, though I’m also happy clean and lube with left over engine oil.   Note that my machines are all  Chinese with sealed bearings:  I’d be more picky lubing a Myford or any other classic machine with total loss plain bearings.

In the good old days, advice about materials could often be generalised, because most things were rather simple.  Not so today, because rapid development during the 19th and 20th centuries, means that many materials are race-tuned to a particular purpose.   In a precise engineering sense, there’s no such thing as ‘Engine Oil’ – there are hundreds of alternatives.   On a mini-lathe, the differences are unlikely to matter much – splash some oil on, and it will do far more good than harm.

Dave

 

 

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