Newbie with oiling problems?

I see on E-bay that there are special oils used on these lathes. Are they necessary or worth it?

Good question

The answer, everyone has there own opinion.

Personaly, I dont get too excited becasue the SB was designed long before todays oils were developed and were designed to run with suff far inferior to what we use today.

Having said that, try and get strait weigh, non detergent oils, not automotive motor oil.
Automotive oils have a lot of addititves to prevent foaming and change the viscosity as it warms up. None of these do anything for a lathe and may be detremental.

Also use the recomended weigh of oil. Too thin and it wont stay put, too heavy, it wont go where it needs to.

If anything is running hot, something is wrong.

The other critical factor on lubricaton, try and keep things clean. Replace broken oiling port caps. Avoid grease on gears, it just traps chips, and dont forget the little screw in plugs on the cross feed and compound.

You can buy a gallon of spindle oil from http://www.mcmaster.com for about what he wants for a little squirt bottle. I use spindle oil for the headstock, and 30wt non det from walmart for the ways. And mix a little for some other ports. I do use the teflon grease for the back gear quill and the pulley. Mine has been tore apart and cleaned so i know there isn't a buildup of old grease...Bob http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/aametalmaster/detail?.dir=bf15&.dnm=1cf1re2.jpg&.src=ph

Thanks for the info. It well worth belonging to this forum.I'm learning.

The other faction is reporting in on the issue,
as I've said before, I use 0W30 Mobil One
synthetic motor oil in SB spindle bearings
(both in my 9" model A, and both of the 10Ls
I've owned) to good effect.

The ways get way oil, and the rest of the
oil points get ATF.

Jim

It's my understanding that bar and chain oil is equivalent to way oil but a lot cheaper. After doing a little research I discovered that the only difference between the Mobil 1 0W30 and 5W30 is that the 0W30 maintains its viscosity better at sub freezing temps. At normal temps they are essentially the same.
Chaz

The ways get way oil, and the rest of the
oil points get ATF.

Jim

Click to expand...

Jim, I've heard of people using automatic transmission fluid as a general machine lubricant before, but I don't know what the rationale is. Are you talking about the red-colored "Dexron" stuff? What is the advantage over regular machine oil?

Paula

I would say that there are two advantages, one
is that the dextron ATF is pretty high
detergent and very non-gumming. No matter
how long it is on a surface, I've never seen it
form any kind of residue that won't lubricate.

The other advantage that makes me tend to use
it is, it is readily available in inexpensive
quart containers, locally. At any auto part
store or, for that matter, the local supermarket.

Jim