can penetrating oil be gelled?

Maybe via the process that makes hydrogonated oils like they do for food-grade oils... However, beware because those are really bad for you.

Can you "freeze" it then let it thaw on the part?

Hope you find something...

Regards, Joe Agro, Jr.

It would seem to me that gelling penetrating oil would render it ineffective due to the increase in viscosity. A spray of oil when applied from below would be more effective than application of a liquid. It actually takes very little penetrating oil on a fastener. Of what you apply only a miniscule amount is going to wind up in the threads.

Perhaps you can vibrate the fastener at the same time you apply the penetrating oil. Something like a hammer drill perhaps.

--RC

Sleep? Isn't that a totally inadequate substitute for caffine?

Hmph, I thought most of it was _supposed_ to end up on the floor!

Yep. There's just not much volume in the space between male and female parts -- er, ummmm, threads. The penetrant that gets there does it by capillary action and will go up almost as easily as it goes down. But the rest still ends up on the floor.

I've been trying PB Blaster and Gunk Liquid Wrench lately and find both effective even on corrosion-frozen aluminum wheelchair parts.

I'd still like to find the engineer for one of our major manufacturers whose idea it was to put fine-thread, Grade 8, black oxided, steel screws into soft aluminum _without_ any kind of anti-sieze! Grrrrr. :)

:) Went all the way to the Dark Side. Bought a Mac and OS X (aka BSD Unix) The RH9 box is now a file server and firewall and I dump^H^H^H^H gave the XP Pro box to my wife. (Is that grounds for divorce anywhere? Emotional abuse, maybe?)

Use Kroil in an atomizing pump sprayer. You don't need to flood the work just sprits it frequently with a small amount.

Spray bottle.

Add maybe 3% fumed silica and then mix violently.

It may be that gelling the oil will prevent it from wicking into the joint. But if enough of the fastener is protruding then maybe a small piece of stiff foam would do. Just push onto the bolt and saturate. ERS

Hydrophobic surface-treated fumed silica, of course.

No - the usual stuff. Maximum thixotropy is created by make and break networks of surface hydrogen bonding.

I'd try combining it with a soap. Ivory comes to mind. I'd overload the soap with the oil then it would probably ooze into the joint. Put it on with a brush. Karl

On Thu, 18 Nov 2004 16:28:35 -0800, Eric R Snow vaguely proposed a theory ......and in reply I say!:

remove ns from my header address to reply via email

Hey! Good idea! Or even a piece of soaked rag.

People are better than dogs for only one purpose. And then it's only half of ofthe people. And _then_ most of them are only ordinary anyway. And then they have a headache.........

To mac users, Windows is the dark side.

Yowza! It's looking lighter and lighter around here. :)

What I usually do is heat one of the parts a bit with a propane torch (be careful and watch for ignitable)

Then cool the part with penetrating oil. Its a nasty method (lots of bad fumes) but it works for me pretty well. Seems to suck the oil right where it needs to go.

You don't want it gelled.... Your useing to much to fast...

Until it disappears from the solvent... Idunno about Kroil, et al. but some of the homebrew substitute mixtures have stuff that eats styrene for breakfast (laquer thinner for instance).

Tim (posting from Google 'cuz Charter is bumfocked the last few days)

LLoyd's Mov-It (sp?) makes a penetraing oil that foams as it comes out of the aerosol can. This keeps it in place long enough. I've found it to be very effective.

Ted

I realize that you want oil to penetrate the threads and not just to remove external rust, but ... when all you've got is a hammer, everything's a nail: naval jelly is pretty goopy and you could use it to remove the external rust, if that'll help.

Some children's toys leave oily stains. Can you take some Silly Putty and work some penetrating oil into it and squeeze that onto the bolt? What about "goop" or "slime" toys? Oil 'em up and squeeze 'em on? I've seen some molded toys that are more gummy or jelly like than Silly Putty that are also very greasy. Usually they're molded insects or octopus or other critter shapes. Maybe you can find some of those.

If the materials are different, heating or cooling may expand or contract one or the other (different expansion coefficients) and make it easier to unstick. Of course, you want to avoid actually welding them together. Rapid cooling of a heated joint might also help (propane torch it then slap it in ice).

Find some thin walled rubber or tygon tubing that fits snuggly over the bolt or nut. Cut off a short piece, close off one end (clamp, stopper), fill it with oil and stick it on ... and hope the oil doesn't weaken the grip. Or, stick a short piece of tubing over the bolt; saturate a wad of cotton or other material and shove it up the tubing so it's jammed against the bolt.

What about hardware solutions? There are many, depending on what's stuck and what you can sacrifice:

- a nut splitter can crack the frozen nut off the bolt.

- there are left handed bits to use to reverse turn stripped bolts and screws that might work on stuck bolts, too.

- drill it out completely.

- a Sawzall(R) saws all.

Thanks for posting that. Is Lloyd's readily available, say, at a particular supplier or two? I haven't seen it around here yet. (Akron OH area)

That could come in very handy.

John