Re: anti-seize goop has a service life?

service life? all over the place, depending on compound..

Anti-seize goop works on the principle of sacrificial anodes, but the >anode is powdered. ok.

sort of -

it also can work on the barrier principle -blocks any activity.

1) If it "keeps the bolts free", you really don't know that they wouldn't have been free anyway.

2) The anti-sieze compounds across the years - and thus what is in the old can and worked for dad - are white lead (barrier), tallow (barrier), nickel paste (combo), ferric oxide inhibitors (allows ferrous, which has less volume), tannins, petroleums, and other neat mixes of water, electrical, and airborne pollutant barriers with silicones and petroleums.

We used to call "never-sieze" "ever-sieze" because it would "work great" in the shop and for about two years in the field and then we would have to cut the bearings off if we had to do maintenance. I pulled the anti-sieze from the in-production bearings and it was a lot easier to remove them five years down the road. And I changed the design of the bearing mounts of the run that followed, and removing them then was no sweat.

And what worked in NYC froze in LA. Same machine model.

So, given the variables in what creates its effectvieness, I challenge anyone to show definitively that an application has helped. Or to show that it has NOT helped. Why? Even if you have 10 bolts on a machine in the same plate, and do 5 with and five without, and you see a difference, you may have seen no difference at all if nothing was used on ALL ten - if the ten conducted so the interface potential is below the necessary potential, the potential below which nothing happens. Like a switch, there is nothing happening until the first criterion is met to provide the path, i.e., X many millivolts, then once the first criterion is met, the amps and path can vary all over the place IMHO, Experience is no guarantee of any previous performance, as they say on the stock market.

IF-IF- you have the same ambient, same moisture, same contaminants, same alloys in the same identical metals, and same loads, AND used the same compound, you could predict fairly well. That rarely happens. I prefer to block with a silicone grease. Had the best luck with it across the years, but forget about painting near it once its on.