Kluber Grease vs Moly Kote BG20

I'm getting ready to reassemble a quill spindle, and I have two choice for grease. The guy who sent me the spindle sent me a small film canister of "Kluber" grease. He said it was the cat's meow for spindle bearings, but I can't really tell exactly what it is since he sent it in generic film canister. 1`

I also have most of a squeeze tube of MolyKote BG-20 left over from when I regreased the Yuasa speeder I picked up. Its rated for high speed, high load, and high heat. It is some pretty decent looking stuff on paper, and I know exactly what it is as its in the original factory packaging. I've got enough in the tube to lube dozens of bearings. My instinct is to pitch the film canister and use the MolyKote, but I was wondering if there was any inherent problem with using this stuff in a "normal speed" application.

96-3600 RPM. Loads upto about 3 horsepower before VFD programming trips an error.
Reply to
Bob La Londe
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The guy who sent me the spindle sent me a small film canister of

Google is your friend in this case. I got a CNC website that sells kluber gease for spindles. Very expensive grease.

I would probably go with the kluber grease.

Dan

Reply to
dcaster

"Kluber" doesn't mean much more than "Mobil" or "Chevron." I repacked a spindle this week with Kluber Isoflex NBU 15, which is probably the expensive stuff you saw. About $30 for a toothpaste tube. On the other hand, there's some Kluber grease here on the shelf that's meant for low speed bearings - about $10 for a grease gun cartridge.

Reply to
Ned Simmons

Well, I did do a Google search inspite of the fact that Google is not my friend and seeks to use everything I do on the internet to increase their database of saleable data.

I found that Kluber is the name of a company like Texaco or Chevron or PepsiCo, and they make a huge variety of products. Not knowing exactly what is in the little can of ubber Kluber grease I was hoping for some help from actual people who might provide some guidance. Since the Dow Corning manufactured MolyKote BG20 can specifically be found and it claims specs far and above the needs of the application I was leaning towards using it. While it might not be "better" than the ubber Kluber stuff I KNOW its intended for harsh bearing applications.

Anyway, that's why I asked.

Reply to
Bob La Londe

My first thought was the moly grease that is used to pack CV joints in front wheel drive cars. High pressure, high temperature, high speed application. I've got about half a dozen tubes of the stuff (VW Audi)

Reply to
clare

Extreme pressure, reasonably high temperature, but not high speed. A car's wheels at highway speed typically turn less than 1,000 rpm.

Your spindle shouldn't generate so much heat that you need high-temperature capability. My understanding of machine tool spindle lubes is that they should be high-pressure, low-friction (no more viscosity than you need) types, and that they must stick to bearings.

In terms of brands and types, though, I'm decades out of touch and can't help.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

And the speed of the wheel at highway speed has nothing to do with the speed of the bearings in the joint.That depends on how tight the turn is. And how big the bearing is. Nothing to do with wheel speed, because in a straight line the U joint bearings virtually do not move

Reply to
clare

I believe that CV joints are always sliding at wheel speed, unless the half-axle makes a perfectly straight line from one end to the wheel hub.

Reply to
Ed Huntress

At a 40 degree angle the angular velocity of the bearings varries from .766 to 1.3+ times nominal speed. Also, rpm is a pretty useless measure of speed in a bearing. What is important is the feet per second movement in the bearing.

See

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for more information. . Also, doing a bit of research I would say NOT to use moly grease on a high speed roller bearing - Greases containing moly are recommended for roller bearings subjected to very heavy loads and shock loading, especially in slow or oscillating motion such as found in universal joints and CV joints. If such greases are used in high-speed bearings, problems can be

rotate through the full 360 degrees due to reduced friction. As a result, the roller develops flat spots, and its service life is reduced. (from an article in "machinery lubrication" magazine.)

So I'll retract my suggestion to use the CV Joint grease. regardless WHAT speed is encountered in the joint.

Reply to
clare

Kluber nbu15 is the one that's specifically desired for machine tool spindle bearings, I seriously doubt that it's something else in the cannister, and I suggest that you should use it.

The usual procedure is to use a syringe to figure out how much it takes to completely fill the space between one set of balls, multiply that amount by the number of balls and then divide it by three to arrive at your total volume. Or in other words you want to fill 1/3 of the space between each ball with grease.

Do not do this in your shop, kitchen table is probably a lot better or at the very least make sure that there are no drafts and that nobody has been doing stupid shit like blasting compressed air around or anything like that for an hour or so before you get started, newsprint is probably okay to work on okay but plastic sheet is better, work quickly to fill the bearings and spread the grease around and then immediately put them into plastic sandwich bags and seal until you're ready to do the actual install.

Reply to
PrecisionmachinisT
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Do you know about the duckduckgo search engine?

their motto is:

"The search engine that doesn't track you."

I use it all the time.

Enjoy, DoN.

Reply to
DoN. Nichols

I took apart an impact driver last night and the amount of junk that started to stick to the grease was fairy alarming. I think I'm going to have to clean all the grease out and start fresh. Ugh.

Reply to
Cydrome Leader

Why don't you ask the guy who sent the grease for the specific part number?

Reply to
rangerssuck

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