Lubricant for shredder blades

I will preface this by saying this is probably a stupid question:

I recently bought a near-industrial grade paper shredder finally after several cheaper ones have broken on me due to cheap-*** construction even on what should have been reasonably good machines.

Anyway I am serious about keeping this thing lubed since the government-grade really fine shredders say all over their warnings online (just looking in the jewelry store online - those shredders typically run $1200+ even for the "desk models" and the most expensive one I saw was $24,000 [really]) that they require frequent oiling or they won't work.

So I've been using Starrett Instrument Oil on it for the past few months since I got it and this has worked great AFAICT but I was wondering if something locally available like RapidTap (I have some) will be OK for it? It's a metal cutting fluid so I just wonder about using it on something like this. Probably fine but I'd rather just use the right thing. Tuf-Glide is good stuff but too thin for something like this where I think the paper would mostly just soak it off (lots of powdery sorbents generated) during use.

I have used Hoppe's aerosol on my older shredders but they're not kidding when they say no aerosols in there - even minutes later I got a nice big pop explosion that almost blew the lid off my cheapest shredder from the relay (presumably) kicking in with trapped isobutane or whatever other propellant they use. Easy to get beautiful coverage with an aerosol like that but not going back down that road. Sometimes I shred stickers and the like, folded into carriers to minimize blade exposure to them, but oil isn't a bad thing I don't think.

Any suggestions on shredder oils? I am a big fan of Moly-Dee for lasting, high quality lubrication on tough jobs, but I always clean it off taps and rotabroaches right away, since the sulfur in it seems to attack some metals and so I don't want to go to a sulfate on this since I really can't clean it off or control it very well in the slot of the shredder. Is RapidTap an acceptable option? This is probably a stupid question but I'd be really interested in seeing what other people have to say if anyone has found the solution. The machining cutter blades are stamped steel of indeterminate grade/composition/coating (no TiN on this one) so a light machine oil seems like the best thing but it might be able to handle a bunch of other stuff.

When I used to service them we just used a light straight mineral oil about SAE 10.

I use this.



http://www.amazon.com/Fellowes-Shre...I58N/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1249482554&sr=8-9

So what happens if you feed in a sheet of wax paper once in a while? Would it be waxy enough to make a difference?

Personaly any light oil or wax realy helps. If your doing sticky stuff (Lables Envelopes etc) It acts as a anti stick and stops guuuueeee building up on the blades. This is generaly when they start to damage them selves quickly ( Get forced appart as the build up increases in thickness as well as stopping shearing cleanly, again forces build up quick in all directions). personaly me and all the other service engineers that i ever came across use to just give them a very healthy slathering in any thing that was close to hand. General cheep motor oil or something of a similar grade. Any excess will soon get soaked up. Instrument oils a very expensive over kill. If you want to help it live longer keep the ferrous stuff like paper clips and staples out. Avoid plastics and binding elements of all kinds too. Whilst there oftern rated as able to eat any thing ring binder mechanisims dont do them any favours lots of hard ish springs in them.

Personaly i have a pair of gerbals. Any thing that requires destruction gets carefully teased through to them. I have yet to ever hear of any one trying or succeding to reassemble roddent droppings as they seam to eat as much as they rip up! Shredding can be reassembled if the rewards are worth the effort. Theres more than a few drug dealers of diffrent levels doing time in the uk due to carfull forensic jigsawing of documents.

Shredders

Gerbils? Sort of overkill.
The Brits are now culling American Grey Squirrels and cooking them.

At least they come with Government Health warnings

'May contain nuts'

I think 3-in-1 with the dropper is the trick for lubing the blades. Nothing (AFAIK) will attack any of the components and the lubing is well wortj the time. Any thougts on 3-in-1 oil a la home depot

Sorry for the semicoherent response yesterday! It was a long day and I was still on the phone for work when I got home. Anyway I don't know why I didn't think of it but 3-in-1 seems to be a perfect fit for this. I like the Starrett Instrument oil because it was relatively cheap and it is so highly refined (intended for DTIs even) that it doesn't get gummy or anything. Any thoughts on 3-in-1? I can use Vactra (way oil) or other bulk oil that I have but the instrument oil will have to wait until I reorder because it's not worth shipping by itself...

They make shredder lubricant sheets. I got some for my shredder at Staples.

http://www.staples.com/office/suppl...32169&langId=-1&storeId=10001&catalogId=10051

Crashtest beat me to it. I have the sheets and they say to use them after every 10 hours or so of shredding. So maybe once every 2 months for the average user, unless you are getting rid of several years of out of date files. And if you are worried about things being reconstructed, well 2 options: buy a classified rated one that basically makes powder (nice for paper-mache for the kids projects), or do as I do, some gets used to light the charcoal grill, some gets used as filler in the cats box and the rest gets mixed in with the mulch for the flower beds and dug in. Nothing in the same place and if you stir it up before use, I wish them luck in putting any of it back together again. If you just want to burn it , make sure that you stir the ashes well. Handled carefully even burned papers can be reconstructed. They did it at our Embasy in Iran in 1980.

ARFF79 said:

Crashtest beat me to it. I have the sheets and they say to use them after every 10 hours or so of shredding. So maybe once every 2 months for the average user, unless you are getting rid of several years of out of date files. And if you are worried about things being reconstructed, well 2 options: buy a classified rated one that basically makes powder (nice for paper-mache for the kids projects), or do as I do, some gets used to light the charcoal grill, some gets used as filler in the cats box and the rest gets mixed in with the mulch for the flower beds and dug in. Nothing in the same place and if you stir it up before use, I wish them luck in putting any of it back together again. If you just want to burn it , make sure that you stir the ashes well. Handled carefully even burned papers can be reconstructed. They did it at our Embasy in Iran in 1980.

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I have a good quality crosscut but I really did want a DoD-approved shredder (from SEM or an equivalent brand) because classified shredders tend to be really well built and they are unparalleled at security but I couldn't find one for less than $200 even used and since they weigh 100+ lbs even for the smallest ones the $200 one would have been $350 by the time it was delivered to me and even then it was only "seems to work but no guarantees" by the seller so I bought a very heavy duty for the price ($170) Fellowes larger crosscut which is great so far. I always mix up my shredded pieces manually when I open the garbage can part to compress the shredded pieces (even though they're about 1x1/4 so hard to reconstruct anyway even on a good day, AND I tear open the bag and distribute the shredded paper all over the place into the dumpster at my complex. In short I'm not really worried about reconstruction but I would have preferred an SEM grade machine but they run from $1500 to $24,000 (really) new, and they REQUIRE much more frequent oiling than the more conventional machines. Also a lot of them are 220V and I really can't justify dropping that kind of cash on something with really no practical benefit over the one I got.

Anyway I'm pretty happy with mine and the instructions for mine (Fellowes DM17Ci from Costco $170ish) recommend that you oil every time you have to empty the garbage can part (it's a pretty big shredder, 17 sheet capacity with casters and a pretty big receptacle) so that's about every month for me (I shred anything at all with my name or address on it).

Since I shred stickers a fair amount since I peel off shipping labels etc (I fold them between paper to keep them from gumming up the blades too bad) I wanted to be sure I'm lubing sufficiently. I think the lube jobs I have been doing so far have been totally sufficient but I'm not sure it's the best way.

Anyway crashtest and Arf - what do you think of the lubricant sheets? I have seen them for years but I thought they were kind of gimmicky - easy for sure and definitely better than nothing but I thought they were kind of expensive when a micro-oiler and some decent lube (teflon bearing mineral oil or just a standard lube) would probably get better coverage and last longer.

Anyways the classified-approved DoD machines I've seen have all said "oil daily or machine will stop working" which is overkill of course (like "top off drip cup daily" on milling machine spindle instructions) but the finer the cut the lower the sheet count they can handle at once and the more maintenance so I'm pretty happy with mine. I can put in an unopened envelope that's got five sheets or so in it and it won't bat an eye.

Are the sheets any good? What grade/size/model shredders are you using them on?

PS I forgot if I mentioned it but I was using Hoppes aerosol spray lube in an old shredder (cheapo) and it actually made a small explosion a couple minutes later when I put a clean sheet through to pick up excess oil. The isobutane propellant must have filled the garbage can part and then when the relay kicked it it must have sparked and ignited it but I got a big "whumpf" sound and little flames shot out of the vent etc. Pretty startling! No big deal but they're not kidding when they say no spray lube. I'm sure it's fine if you let it air out but I didn't think much of it until it almost blew the lid thing off. Neat thing to see but I wasn't expecting it since I had done it a bunch of times without that happening. That shredder (like all of my previous ones without metal gears) ended up chewing up its internal drive system and breaking so that's why I was driven to spending the cash on one finally that's got good components in it so it won't just wear out on me. Also the very high power of this model is pretty cool and it has a thickness gage with an LED bar for telling you how close you are to the max amount of sheets. It even recommends running it at the top of the max range for maximum efficiency. In short it was well worth the money because I would have actually saved money on shredders if I had just bought a beefy one first instead of having four cheap ones just die on me. Really would have preferred and SEM or other DoD one (even just the head and I would make my own housing/receptacle) but this one has been more than powerful enough and has a truly impressive sheet capacity and torque.

proFeign said:

Anyway crashtest and Arf - what do you think of the lubricant sheets? I have seen them for years but I thought they were kind of gimmicky - easy for sure and definitely better than nothing but I thought they were kind of expensive when a micro-oiler and some decent lube (teflon bearing mineral oil or just a standard lube) would probably get better coverage and last longer.

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I have a Fellowes, model something 12 about $100 from Costco. I think the lub sheets work well. I doubt they are the cheapest method, but I'm also not over lubing it, or blowing it up.