Grease for Plastic Gears?

[Phill Dyson]

Hi

I just wondered if anyone has any recommendations for a suitable grease for the dreaded Heljan plastic gears?

Cheers Phill

 

[mickoo]

White grease, not at home now so can't give you a trade name, but there's an industrial grease, we call it white grease (cause it's white) and it's excellent for lubricating nylon gears and such like, also good for kitchen draw runners and cupboard rotating shelves.

But any nylon grease will do, thinking about it I've seen white grease used on RTR 4mm locos in the past.

 

[mickoo]

I got an aerosol can of white grease off Ebay, much cheaper than 'dedicated' model grease. I spray it into a small glass jar, and then use a cocktail stick to apply it to the gears.

That's the stuff.

 

[Steph Dale]

Guys,
Careful. White grease just means it's got PTFE in it. The base lubricant would still be harmful to plastics unless clearly marked. And a nylon-safe grease won't necessarily be okay with delrin/acetal gears.
I suggest going a different route and using the Woodland Scenics 'gear lube' which is a truly excellent thixotropic gear grease. Actually they do a pack of different model related lubricants which (from memory) includes a PTFE grease, although I've not used it.
Two areas where you'll rarely find a bargain are lubricants and adhesives; in general you get what you pay for with either.
Steph (one time tribologist)

 

[Steph Dale]

Guys,

I've done a look round and also followed up a prompt received from Mr D Star. Look for Tri-Flow High-Perfomance Synthetic grease as an alternative for your models. It's considered plastic-safe and works very well under heavy load in gearboxes as it's PTFE loaded - I can see I need to dig out my pot for my own gearboxes...

Steph

 

[Steph Dale]

More info (although not a huge amount): http://www.triflow.co.uk/index.html
It appears to be part of Sherwin-Williams (Ronseal)...
By the way a quick search on 'Tri-Flow' soon found small tubesof the Synthetic stuff I'm talking about; it seems very popular with owners of RC helicopters.
Steph

 

[Phill Dyson]

Thanks for the pointers

This looks like it may be suitable http://www.sloughrc.com/?itemid=T-TRF03 then?........I would assume with it's R/C applications that it is plastic friendly?

Cheers Phill

 

[Steph Dale]

Phil,

One thing Graham and I have found out is that Pronatur wound up in c.2000 (at which point I assume the product was taken on by Ronseal). so that pot might be a little elderly! However; my pot is substantially older than that and it's still a perfectly stable lubricant (I just checked).

One slight concern is that I'm not certain that's the synthetic type. If it's the normal mineral-oil based one it's no good for plastics.

I did find some of the synthetic variant though - look here and here.

Steph

 

[Phill Dyson]

Thanks Steph, I will play it safe & go for one of those synthetic types in your links