Source of Extra Sticky Grease?

I am looking for a source of extra sticky grease. This is for the epicyclic gearbox on my Dore Westbury mill.

I asked the same question on this group a while back, and one suggestion was Red n Tacky grease. I managed to get some of this, and it does stay in place better than the general purpose greases I'd tried previously. however, when running at high speed (above 1500 rpm) the grease still centrifuges off the gears and finds its way out of the gearbox. From here it coats the inside of the belt cover, and eventually reaches the workshop wall....

I can find plenty of references to "coupling grease" which seems to be the right sort of stuff, but where does one buy small quantities? Most seem to come in huge drums.

Any help very much appreciated.

Mike

Reply to
mikecb1
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Sounds like you want motorbike chain grease which you melt over a hob until it's liquid, drop the chain in, shake the excess off and then it sets like bloody concrete as it cools. Well not really but you get the gist. It's designed to resist being flung off at high speed or it would just coat the rider and everything around him. It comes in a tub about 12" in diameter and

3" high so you can fit a whole chain inside it. I have a partially used tub which I bought many eons ago for my bike which I haven't ridden for 30 years and I'm sure any motorbike shop would sell you the same for a small amount of folding. When cold and hard it has about the consistency of paraffin wax but heat it gently and it turns into liquid. It can be reheated and cooled ad infinitum without losing its properties. For your application I guess you'd heat it until it melts and brush it on quick seeing as you can hardly drop the bits into the tub. Bloody good stuff and it extends the life of motorbike chains many times over. It keeps the grit out and the lubrificating goodness in.

Nothing you'll buy which goes on cold will do anything like the same service because it's limited by its cold viscosity. This stuff is only limited by its hot viscosity which is near as dammit like water. When it's set nothing on god's earth will fling it off.

If you don't want much and if I can find the tub after 30 years I could scrape some into a pot and send it to you. I have a hunch I know where it might still be.

Reply to
Dave Baker

It's available also in aerosol cans. I made the mistake of using some on some filing cabinet drawer runners, used for tool storage. It's so sticky that it's a struggle to get the **** drawers opened!

Tim

Reply to
Tim L

Dave

Sounds like a very good idea. In reality I only need about an eggcup full, so if you were able to send me some I'd be very grateful. More than happy to pay any costs. If you can help, contact me off-group at mike.crossfield [at] virgin .net

Cheers

Mike

Reply to
mikecb1

Had a good Google and it seems this stuff is hard to find nowadays. Eventually turned up this.

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Seems to be called chain wax rather than chain grease which is appropriate I guess because that's what it sets like.

Reply to
Dave Baker

Ah, but it's not that good. No it works, but has to be used in a different way and only works perfect on chains. The one I have is from Castrol. Heat it up until it is liquid, put the chain in and move it around, pull out the chain and let drip off the excess grease.

Something much easier to use is motorcycle chain *spray* oil. It also is much tackier. Or for the cheapies: Chainsaw-oil. :-)

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

OK, so maybe the spray motorcycle chain grease is the stuff to try. I'll enquire at the local motorcycle shop and see what they have available.

Thanks

Mike

Reply to
mikecb1

That's the whole point so that when it's hot and water thin it gets into all the links and then sets hard inside them. Spray on stuff doesn't penetrate like that. It just sits on the outside where it does bugger all good. If anything it just attracts grit and turns it into grinding paste. You don't want lubricant on the outside of summat - you want it on the inside.

Nonsense. The heatable stuff sets much harder than any spray on stuff. If the spray on stuff was that hard it wouldn't spray. I put 50k miles on bikes in my youth including two trips round Europe so I know what works on bike chains and what doesn't.

Reply to
Dave Baker

Not a nonsense. You'll understand why and when (you are right): The spray-on grease has a solvent in it that evaporates. So it *is* thick and it *is* sticky. It is even sticky like hell but not as sticky as air filter oil. :-) The reason why you are -to some degree- right is, that you are an old man. :-) The grease to boil the chains out in works perfect on non-O-ring-chains and that's what it was designed for and that's why you have to look for it in a verrrrry dark corner. But that is past.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Jeez I've just remembered that on the second trip I actually took my huge tub of chain wax with me despite all the other crap we had to carry and half way round Europe I took the chain off and gave it another soaking with the wax melted on our little camping gaz stove. I'm so anally retentive I used to keep a log of how many notches on the rear swing arm the chain would wear per thousand miles and I realised before we set off that it was touch and go if it would last the several thousand miles we had planned to travel without another greasing and I was too tight to buy a new chain before we left when the old one still had some life left in it. I also used to log tyre wear and fuel consumption too with careful records of how the mpg and driveability changed if I moved the carb needles up or down a notch on the adjustment notches they had built in to them. I'm a sad bastard. They were bloody good days though. Fun and carefree unlike what we now live in courtesy of our deranged government and its constant attack on our civil liberties.

I remember pulling up to the border checkpoint between somewhere (France or Switzerland?) and Italy with the other two guys and this little hitler (mussolini?) walked out of his hut and started asking for all our paperwork which was deeply buried inside the strapped on luggage and a pain to get to. "Oi mate" I said pointing to the union jack sticker on the back of the suitcase strapped to my bike. "English blokes here".

"Ah Inglese" he smiled and waved us straight through.

Then there was the old woman in a print dress scrubbing the front steps of her apartment in Paris when myself and Martin walked past in our Belstaffs and motorbike boots. She spat on the ground and said "Bosch" in a voice filled with venom. I suppose in 1978 it wasn't that long since the war had ended and memories of the Nazi occupation were still fresh amongst the older people there.

Reply to
Dave Baker

You should have answered: "No, Lucas!" :-))))

Thanks for the nice story!

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

IIRC the gearbox on the Dore Westbury uses an oil bath,mine does anyway and I think I followed all the instructions when I built it.Also IIRC the gearbox only comes into play when you use back gear.

A call or email to Ivan Law at MES would give you the correct answer.

Allan

Reply to
Allan Waterfall

It's so sticky that most of it flys off the chain and lands on the wheel rims, in which poistion it of course sticks so hard that you can never get it off. A real pain on nice polished or painted alloy rims.

I'm surprised at you Nick, you really should know better than using that stuff on a modern motorcycle chain, it's strictly for the non-enlightened. It works very well to attract and retain all the road dust and grit, and forms a nice grinding paste for the chain. A modern 'O' ring chain just needs a thorough external cleaning, and a good wipe-over with a nice oily rag.

I remember Castrol 'Linklyfe' though, and stunk out my mums kitchen on more than one occasion with that stuff in the past.

Peter

Reply to
Peter Neill

The spray on chain greases have quite a lot of solvent in them. They go on thin and runny, then seriously thicken up. They also have tackifiers in them.

Used both over the years and they both work well on bike chains.

Mark Rand RTFM

Reply to
Mark Rand

I'd say don't get distracted by the bikers thread, interesting though it is (and speaking as an ex biker myself). The thing which kills bike chains is water, which I hope isn't your problem.

I've found Rocol Tuffgear lubes pretty good (check the web site)

Reply to
newshound

Just for the record, the Mk1 Dore-Westbury gearbox uses spur gears (Myford change gears actually) in a non-sealed housing. They are very rattly, even when the epicyclic gearing is not in use (believe me!). To reduce the noise the recommendation from MES is to apply thick, sticky grease, hence my original question. The Mk2 machine is different. It uses helical gears running in an enclosed oil to solve the problem.

Mike

Reply to
mikecb1

Sounds like good stuff, but my experience of Rocol products is that they are aimed at industrial users, and are priced accordingly. Also hard to source in small quantity. If anyone can prove me wrong I'd be delighted to hear from them.

Mike

Reply to
mikecb1

Me too.

But there's no fine print about that on the can. 8-]

You are right. Somehow. But "modern" seems to include that whiny generation that avoids the rain like Dracula avoids garlic. :-)

I've been Enduro and MotoCross racing. And I can only tell you, that normal oil is completely off after 1/2 hour. In the evening (after an 4 hour Enduro) the chain rattles. Not if you use that "non-enlightened" oil. Especially if you do have a bunch of water passages.

We all agree how O-ring chains work and that any grease put on onto the outside doesn't lubricate the inside.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Believe it or not. I'm using spray-on chain oil for the motorcycle for exactly that purpose. That works great, and I can use up my collection of chain oil (that I always got for free). Only disadvantage is, that you get damned dirty hands when changing wheels. :-))

You can really use chain-saw oil. Maybe a neighbor has a bit for you to try it by yourself.

Nick

Reply to
Nick Mueller

Ahhh.....that explains it,your original post didn't mention it was a Mk1

Allan

Reply to
Allan Waterfall

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