anti seize for stainless fasteners?

[stevethegrease]

Copper grease is OK for stainless to stainless, but never for stainless into alloy - the copper and stainless are quite noble and the Alloy quite reactive , so it makes a large Galvanic differential, resulting in the alloy corroding away badly . I've seen bike brake calipers eaten away badly by the use of copper grease.

 

[Martin-Sy]

Copper grease is OK for stainless to stainless, but never for stainless into alloy - the copper and stainless are quite noble and the Alloy quite reactive , so it makes a large Galvanic differential, resulting in the alloy corroding away badly . I've seen bike brake calipers eaten away badly by the use of copper grease.

Thanks. I was just about ask what the issue was.

 

[striker]

Copper grease is OK for stainless to stainless, but never for stainless into alloy - the copper and stainless are quite noble and the Alloy quite reactive , so it makes a large Galvanic differential, resulting in the alloy corroding away badly . I've seen bike brake calipers eaten away badly by the use of copper grease.

Conversely, I've never had an alloy seatpost seize in a steel frame, I've been using coppaslip for over 40 years on bikes and cars.

 

[Hood]

Aluminium anti-seize is what I use and have for many years. I do a lot of A2 into Aluminium and it works well for that. I also find it works well for stainless to stainless.

 

[northwest]

Ceramic brake grease - in cheap tubes designed for car brakes...?

or half a kilo for £10.99

I use ceramic grease on Choke Tubes in shotguns and it works well.

krytox … but you really don’t want to go there

When it comes in a little syringe in huge packaging you just know the invoice is going to smart a bit!

There is a product available in the US that is silver based grease, Not cheap at all and I almost bought some but had a word with myself.

 

[Robert Weaver]

Colloidal graphite is a well used product.

NEOLUBE NO. 1, or dag580, or Bonderite L-GP 580

 

[Bullet2012]

Vaseline

 

[Onoff]

Aluminium anti-seize is what I use and have for many years. I do a lot of A2 into Aluminium and it works well for that. I also find it works well for stainless to stainless.

Me too. Changed from copper to aluminium slip a while back.

 

[mike os]

When it comes in a little syringe in huge packaging you just know the invoice is going to smart a bit

I don’t even look anymore, it’s too scary… we buy it by the lb… 2 man application, one to use, one to ensure you touch nothing but the component and clean tools… touch your face, overalls, uncovered table etc it’s clean gloves and whatever you touched, Small amount o of grease onto a clean surface and container closed up tightly. Touch the inside of the tin with “dirty” gloves and it’s in the bin, can’t even retain it for “general use” in case it gets mistaken for a clean tin.

I’ve been known to use a box of gloves in les than half a day … sometimes they don’t even get to touch a part before they get changed… some jobs are a pita

 

[Maker]

When it comes in a little syringe in huge packaging you just know the invoice is going to smart a bit

I don’t even look anymore, it’s too scary… we buy it by the lb… 2 man application, one to use, one to ensure you touch nothing but the component and clean tools… touch your face, overalls, uncovered table etc it’s clean gloves and whatever you touched, Small amount o of grease onto a clean surface and container closed up tightly. Touch the inside of the tin with “dirty” gloves and it’s in the bin, can’t even retain it for “general use” in case it gets mistaken for a clean tin.

I’ve been known to use a box of gloves in les than half a day … sometimes they don’t even get to touch a part before they get changed… some jobs are a pita

I found a tin of Rocol Kilopoise in a skip once, never heard of it but I nabbed it thinking it was cutting compound. Googled it when I got home and it's "damping grease", about six hundred quid's worth! I couldn't believe A. grease got that expensive, and B. it got thrown out.

 

[daleyd]

I found a tin of Rocol Kilopoise in a skip once, never heard of it but I nabbed it thinking it was cutting compound. Googled it when I got home and it's "damping grease", about six hundred quid's worth! I couldn't believe A. grease got that expensive, and B. it got thrown out.

We had some high temp fan bearings that used Kluberplex grease - looked like normal lithium type grease but the cost was astronomical!! Most of our other bearing blocks used Aeroshell grease which was expensive enough but this was different league

When I used to do a lot of stainless burner chambers and thermocouple heads we used to use copper slip, or molykote assembly paste depending what we had to hand, never had a problem with either in high temp applications (800 deg c or more). If you didn’t use any you could almost guarantee they would gall on the way out…

 

[bricol]

you could almost guarantee they would gall on the way out…

Always seems to be on the on the way out on site - never on the way in when its in your shop with time and equipment to be able to deal with it . .

 

[Morrisman]

I remember the nerve wracking job of tightening up compression fittings on some racing yacht stainless rigging wires, when I worked in a yacht marina in Singapore a lifetime ago. Everything would be going swimmingly, slowly tightening with a couple of big spanners, a $500 fitting on $1000 back stay, on a $1,000,000 racing yacht.....

...then there would be a horrifying 'screech' feeling.....the fitting was locked, wouldn't move either way..... and I'm thinking "did I get it tightened down far enough, will the wire pull out halfway through winning the Kings Cup trophy?

It didn't pull out, though the yacht never won the trophy, and nobody ever knew the trauma I went through for several weeks.....


Nobody knew of any sort of anti sieze back then. I'd just fill each fitting with Sikaflex to keep the salt water out and stop crevice corrosion.

 

[northwest]

Titanium bolts with Titanium nuts try getting them apart!

 

[daleyd]

Always seems to be on the on the way out on site - never on the way in when its in your shop with time and equipment to be able to deal with it . .

On the way in was nice and clean at the factory - on the way out was after 12 months of 800 degree heat, with bits of cerablanket insulation dropping in the threads - no contest

 

[Brad93]

When it comes in a little syringe in huge packaging you just know the invoice is going to smart a bit

I don’t even look anymore, it’s too scary… we buy it by the lb… 2 man application, one to use, one to ensure you touch nothing but the component and clean tools… touch your face, overalls, uncovered table etc it’s clean gloves and whatever you touched, Small amount o of grease onto a clean surface and container closed up tightly. Touch the inside of the tin with “dirty” gloves and it’s in the bin, can’t even retain it for “general use” in case it gets mistaken for a clean tin.

I’ve been known to use a box of gloves in les than half a day … sometimes they don’t even get to touch a part before they get changed… some jobs are a pita

Laboratory or aerospace can be the only industries that stuff is used surely?

 

[Munkul]

We had some high temp fan bearings that used Kluberplex grease - looked like normal lithium type grease but the cost was astronomical!! Most of our other bearing blocks used Aeroshell grease which was expensive enough but this was different league

We use Klubertemp grease for some seal assemblies at work as it's resistant to a certain nasty chemical... £5400 for 10kg, and we used 30kg last year

 

[tom2207]

tungsten disulphide works for me , again its not cheap but you really dont use much either , so all in all its not too bad.

 

[mike os]

Laboratory or aerospace can be the only industries that stuff is used surely?

correct

 

[gasket999]

I was really surprised that there wasn't a clear cut answer, glad I'm not the only one.

Thank you very much for the replies - in the end I've armed myself with two products:

1) Yellow Duralac - this will be used when fitting Stainless fixings through aluminium panels and will be put behind bolt and nut flanges and washers, just to avoid electrolytic corrosion.
2) Tygris Nickel Anti-Seize. I've never used it before, but it was available at a sensible price (£25 delivered) and specifically mentions stainless fixings on the blurb. This will be used on the actual threads when fitting A2 and A4 stainless bolts into matching nuts.


However, I'm still stuck on the last query. I frequently have to use stainless screws and bolts with mild steel captive nuts or threaded holes in mild steel. In this case I don't know whether to use the Duralac on the threads (not an anti seize as its too gloopy but will prevent dissimilar metal issues) or whether to use the new Tygris Nickel Anti-Seize (given its a stainless bolt) or whether to use normal coppereeze (as the nut/female thread is mild steel). Any suggestions?