Helicall to fibre gear grease

[Gragson]

I've a need to re grease a set of mini mill gears, steel to fibre, currently flushed and light oiled, working well now but had previously hard goose fat looking stuff - albeit in there for 30+ years

Max rpm 1600 - any advice? or am I over thinking it - a little of something is better than nothing. I've got general Castrol CL and Molly CV - either of those do?

 

[mike os]

I would go with a lithium soap based grease

 

[Ubique]

The hard goose fat looking stuff is/was probably Tallow. Sparkies & pipefitters used to have tubs of it for threadcutting steel conduit & pipework. Very low melting point.
Most of it ended up being used in the site morning fry-ups...

 

[Gragson]

The hard goose fat looking stuff is/was probably Tallow. Sparkies & pipefitters used to have tubs of it for threadcutting steel conduit & pipework. Very low melting point.
Most of it ended up being used in the site morning fry-ups...

The manual gives no indication to what it was originally, but does give a sort of service interval, that's pretty hard going tallow - east german mind

 

[Ubique]

I would imagine the GDR Tallow is far superior to our weedy Capitalist version....
This is purely a guess - I would imagine that it was applied warm to the fibre gears to allow it to fill the voids in the fibre, it would warm under friction and eventually migrate to the edges under centrepetal forces, hence the need for re-application.
There are far better modern lubricants, something like the one mentioned above would be ideal.

 

[8ob]

Silicone grease may be kinder on the fibre wheel.

Bob

 

[Spanners]

I recently repaired the Parvalux wire feed gearbox on my Migatronic welder, it has a worm shaft that drives a fibre wheel, the original lube was a semi liquid Castrol grease, I used a grease which was similar to the original grease. Both gears were in perfect condition after 40 years use.
I have an unopened 500gm tin of suitable semi liquid grease, if you’re interested £9 inc post.

Chris

 

[Robotstar5]

The hard goose fat looking stuff is/was probably Tallow. Sparkies & pipefitters used to have tubs of it for threadcutting steel conduit & pipework. Very low melting point.
Most of it ended up being used in the site morning fry-ups...

Still got a block of it

 

[pedrobedro]

My Aldi bench drill was like that when the weather turned cold. It was a few years ago and I hadn't used it for a while, I went in the shed and turned it on and it just buzzed. I thought the motor was goosed but when I took the belt off it ran nicely. I ended up stripping it and using Castrol LM grease and it's been fine since. As you say, a little of anything will probably be better than nothing. Mine was the Chinese grease and it was so solid I couldn't turn the chuck by hand.

 

[minimutly]

Still got a block of it

View attachment 325188

I have a tub full - one of my newer turbine builds used it on the front o ring seal.

 

[MattF]

If it was I, whatever grease I had to hand would be getting used. Probably a bog standard lithium grease.

Checking periodically, (& flushing & replacing if necessary), is more suitable than using a certain type of grease, IMHO.

 

[optima21]

its lithium grease in mine

looks like I went for that rather than the cv joint grease.

 

[daleyd]

This is the stuff I use on the open gears on my lathe, mainly because it’s what I managed to swag from work but I can chuck some in a pot and send you some if you want - I doubt I’ll ever get through that tub!? Though to be honest pretty much any grease would do for what you want I would have thought.

 

[Brad93]

The old grease will of been aerated then oxidised into a resin over time.

Anything is better than nothing whether lithium or moly