Non-petroleum lubricant

The weather was nice until Christmas day and thus we grilled outside at my brother-in-law's place on Christmas Eve. BIL has a very nice outdoor grill area that includes a stainless steel sink unit that came from a marine supply place. It had a built-in soap dispenser device that it took all my weight leaning on it to get it to work. He mentioned that he thought the pump dispenser would "break in" over time but that is was still stiff after a year.

Later somewhat bored, he and I took the top of the dispenser to see what was going on inside. Piston, spring, o-rings; looked pretty well made. We decided to try to lube it with something. With all the o-rings and seals, I didn't want to use anything petroleum-based and ended up pouring some olive oil down it. It helped some.

That made me think. If I had taken it apart at home, I probably would have lubed the pieces with silicone grease. I know silicone grease can react with some things negatively (natural rubber?), but I have had good luck with it. I don't know that I have a thin "oil"-type (not very viscous) lubricant in my garage that is non-petroleum. I think even Mineral (baby) oil is still petroleum-based. I have some cutting oil that isn't petroleum-based, but I don't think of it as an all-around lube. What sort of lubricant do you use in a situation like that (non-petroleum, but is easily poured or sprayed)?

JNA

Reply to
jn_alexander2
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That's what I would do too.

How about using the soap itself? Soap isn't that bad at greasing, but it gets washed off when the dispenser is standing in the rain. But who is BBQing in the rain? :-)

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Often you will find a suitable non-petroleum lubricant in the nightstand drawer in the master bedroom. Works very well to make rubber o-rings slippy, not surprisingly.

Reply to
Dave Hinz

There is a kind of silicon grease made for just this purpose - silicone plumbers grease, intended for the innards of faucets and the like. Ace hardware stores carry it.

Joe Gwinn

Reply to
Joseph Gwinn

Indeed. Astroglide works very well and is available at Kmart.

Ah.er..or so they say.........

Gunner

"Aren't cats Libertarian? They just want to be left alone. I think our dog is a Democrat, as he is always looking for a handout" Unknown Usnet Poster

Heh, heh, I'm pretty sure my dog is a liberal - he has no balls. Keyton

Reply to
Gunner

Doesn't pour very well, but K-Y jelly or local equivalent is a good non-oil rubber lubricant. Even used it once when fitting a recalcitrant motorbike tyre.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

Heavy alcohol, with plasticizers, is a good treatment for rubber parts. It's sold as brake fluid. The heavy alcohol is similar to glycerine, washes off with water, but it's the plasticizers that matter; it can return a rubber part to like-new condition.

Reply to
whit3rd

If I had to spray it, I'd go for a water-based silicone spray. Stuff is available at most any decent hardware store, mine is food-grade. Silicone grease would probably work for plastics and slow speeds, I like the Syntec teflon lube gel for that sort of thing, myself. Actually, the soap should be doing the lubricating here, might be he needs to change brands(or provide some weather protection).

Stan

Reply to
stans4

OK, I've got to ask the dumb question---How much petroleum is there in synthetic motor oil? Would it be suitable as a non-petroleum lubricant?

Reply to
Bill Marrs

I may be mistaken, but my understanding is that "synthetic" oils are 100% _derived_from_ petroleum materials (not necessarily oil, per se, but other fractions as well) and natural gas which are then converted thermally and chemically into new compounds. Of course, as with all oils, the additives may not be petroleum-based; those such as metal soaps (detergents) etc.

If that is the case, then I'd still consider synthetics to be "petroleum", and would look only to vegetable and animal fats and/or waxes as the non-petroleum alternatives. (Lard makes a good grease that doesn't go rancid rapidly at room temperature)

LLoyd

Reply to
Lloyd E. Sponenburgh

Get some rubber lube from FAI model supply or sig or pirelli. Glycerine and green soap mostly Most hobby shops sell it also.

Reply to
daniel peterman

Astroglide or KY for orings, lipstick for sticky collets, I'd not sure what my coworkers would think if they saw that stuff in my toolbox......

Reply to
clutch

I still have pieces of ladies nylon hose (stockings) in my toolbox, left over from my days as a die maker.

Reply to
Camperken

Did you use 'shear' to check the shear?

Wes S

Reply to
clutch

I keep nail polish (various markings) and makeup application brushes (soft brushes for cleaning fragile things such as camera lenses, etc.) handy, so I'm not questioning that there was some legitimate use for stockings......

I AM, however, curious as to exactly what it was in the event I can also find it usefull.....

Reply to
*

Works great for slipping new handgrips on too.

Reply to
Jim Stewart

Go to a hobby shop. They have that in the train / car/ boat area!

Martin Martin H. Eastburn @ home at Lions' Lair with our computer lionslair at consolidated dot net TSRA, Life; NRA LOH & Endowment Member, Golden Eagle, Patriot"s Medal. NRA Second Amendment Task Force Charter Founder IHMSA and NRA Metallic Silhouette maker & member.

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jn snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com wrote:

Reply to
Martin H. Eastburn

That its the wrong color for you? ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

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