Blacksmith Johnny Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I finaly got to taking my old screw press apart for cleaning and retooling.(awesome tool adapter from msmw.com -Thanks Jim ) It was covered with hundred year old goop. My question is what are your sugestions for best lube to use on screw. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old N Rusty Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Try getting some stuff called "neva sieze" a heavy graphite lube is used in the chem. plants to lube valve screws and bolts. It never hardens and is very slippery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knots Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 Way Oil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted February 27, 2012 Share Posted February 27, 2012 I second the use of way oil. I have 5 gals that I got about ten years ago and use it on all the machine tools in the shop, including the fly press. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dkunkler Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Way oil is the way to go. It's what I use on both of my fly presses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 For large translating screws like in a flypress, or large valves, a high Moly-disulfide content grease is the best at preventing wear and reducing friction. In testing on ACME threads for valves I found that Dow Corning MolyKote GN Assembly paste was the very top lubricant. In testing where the test rig destroyed acme 416ss stems running in 410SS yoke nots in 5 to 10 cycles with oil and plain greases, the GN paste yeilded 16,000 cycles of operation. The neversiezes, and various "Patent Madicine" oils yeilded results in that same 5-10 cycles. Granted the rig was intended to overload the threads and give results and did. No graphite lube did better than 50 cycles, no neversieze better than 15. All of the moly-disulfide lubes gave much better results. The GN Paste being the best. We switched to using the GN paste on every single valve we built unless for Oxygen or chlorine service, and that was about 100,000 valves a month. When the stems with the GN paste failed, it was because the threads rolled over and no longer engaged! they were still full thickness, and you could still see the tooling marks. Many folks use Never-seize as a lube, but it is designed not as a lube but as a long term material to prevent heat and stress galling. Some of our customers would disassemble our valves, and remove the Moly, and then paste them up with never-sieze, and then wonder why they failed prematurely. :) NOW several important notes about this unique moly grease: 1. It has about 70% fine moly. If it gets on the skin, it gets in the cracks and has to wear off:) 2. The running friction under load of a well lubed moly thread is about 40% less than just oil. This means for the same torque you get MORE thrust, or more bolting stress, so go easy on the torque till you get a feel. We also used this paste in the assembly of 316ss valves including 316 bolting. Before we started using this paste we galled about 25% of the bolts before they ever made any clamp load scrapping the valve. With we had to "Learn" the right torque with impact guns(We broke a lot of bolts through too much bolting stress) and then we lost maybe 1 in a hundred to galling. 3. A little goes a long way, use a short bristle brush and just barely coat the threads and you have plenty. It stays put in that it does not run off, and unless you heat above about 450F it stays a paste. Can be bought in 1# brush in top cans, and that is a 4 lifetime supply for most:) As an aside, the best never-seize I tested for service to 1000F was Dow Corning MolyKote Antisieze 1000. Nothing else was even close. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eric sprado Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Do you guys use Way Oil on Mechanical Power Hammers like an LG 25#?? thanks, Eric S. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HWooldridge Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Do you guys use Way Oil on Mechanical Power Hammers like an LG 25#?? thanks, Eric S. I do - can't speak for anyone else...bar and chain lube is also pretty sticky and works to stay on the ram for a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nuge Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 +1 for bar/chain oil Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
knots Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 My shop is small and dusty. Therefore I clean and relube the screw press frequently to control the contamination of abbrasives. No doubt there are beter idustrial lubricants but frankly I am concerned more about wear from contamination than anything else. The top quarter of the perimeter surface of my screw have fine threads cut into the press screw. These threads are not a functional part of the screw but to act as an oiling system. The machine was designed to be oiled. My press is a Waterbury Farrell patterns makers press. Thanks to ptree for his valuable and authorative in put. I suppose that i will get some of th GN for use on other screws, and for specific heavy runs on my screw press. Hmm - maybe an old rain coat over the press would solve the contamination problem. It is a tiresome chore to keep it clean . ptree - Slightly off topic but is the GN product suitable for lathe gearing ? The grease that I am using now is a moly based general purpose grease which I also use on my chucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted February 28, 2012 Share Posted February 28, 2012 Gn Paste is very good on slow speed open gears. It will however NOT go thru a grease gun, and is a poor choice for ball and roller bearings. I have found the Dow Corning MolyKote line to be very good, and thier application charts are very good. For roller and ball bearings The Molykote BR2+ is a moly disulfide grease that is a very high performance product Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nonjic Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Great Info on the moly Ptree, Thanks for taking the effort to write it down for others. Ive recently seen the light Moly wise, and happily spray 'dry coat' on anything thats gonna rub! On threads I spray moly, then often put a dab of oil or grease on top of the dry coat, dont know why really other than psychological, it takes the tenths of backlash out I suppose. We allways use moly paste, or spray when 'interference' press fitting components. Worth mentioning that lids should allways be replaced on lube containers in the shop. One bit of grinding grit can make a real mess when it matters! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ptree Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 John N, I use a spray Moly that is basically a thin version of the GN. Doesn't dry. The drying molys are great as long as they adhere. I like the non-drying for places that won't get all over me. As part of the stem test, I tried contaminated lubes. I used a 50:50 mix of coal fly ash and spent sand blast grit. The stem tester had the stem horizontal and after appling the lube to be tested, I sifted a small measured amount of the grit onto the stem and started the testing. The GN ran about 8000 cycles if I recall correctly. The grit basically cut the lubed stem life by at least 50% in every case. The grit cut the unlubed stem life to zero, as the stem did not even make one complete cycle:) If you want the name of the spray moly I can look, I inherited a case when the valve shop shut, as well as a quart of the GN. I am pretty sure Dow Corning MolyKote products are available in the UK. I like their application charts and have never found them wrong. I also find that a little GN is great on leg vise screws. I do use way oil on ways. I use ATF in hand crank blower cases, and use a liquid ptfe/oil on my homemade powerhammer slides as they are steel on UHMWPE. Clay Spencer reccomends the liquid oil/PTFE for his tire hammer slide, and I pretty much copied that for my slides. I tried all sorts of plain oils and the spray liquid oil/PTFE works the best. I use a generic industrial version for Sprayon at half the cost of the namebrand and can't tell the difference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H&T Posted March 8, 2012 Share Posted March 8, 2012 My shop is small and dusty. Therefore I clean and relube the screw press frequently to control the contamination of abbrasives. No doubt there are beter idustrial lubricants but frankly I am concerned more about wear from contamination than anything else. The top quarter of the perimeter surface of my screw have fine threads cut into the press screw. These threads are not a functional part of the screw but to act as an oiling system. The machine was designed to be oiled. My press is a Waterbury Farrell patterns makers press. Thanks to ptree for his valuable and authorative in put. I suppose that i will get some of th GN for use on other screws, and for specific heavy runs on my screw press. Hmm - maybe an old rain coat over the press would solve the contamination problem. It is a tiresome chore to keep it clean . ptree - Slightly off topic but is the GN product suitable for lathe gearing ? The grease that I am using now is a moly based general purpose grease which I also use on my chucks. My solution for protecting the threads on my Fly press from grit and grinding dust was to get a large inner tube and cut a length about a foot long. Not wanting to take the weights and arm off, I split it up one side and fastened it around the threads, then laced up the split with three or four cable ties. One large cable tie at the top end and you have a flexible gaitor that doesn't interfere with the use of the fly press Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blacksmith Johnny Posted March 8, 2012 Author Share Posted March 8, 2012 That sounds like a good idea Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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