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Waylube?

You want an oil with tachafiers in it. When I'm in a real pinch I'll use chainsaw bar oil. Otherwise I think it's vectra #3 by mobile. I could be wrong, just guessing at the moment.

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Depends what you are using it on, but really no. Way lube is different than motor oil.

The motor oil you get at the auto part store comes with lots of additives that work in the high heat rough environment in an engine that has a filter to strain captured particles out, but in a cold quiet application like a machine tool's ways, those additives often get gummy and the oil doesn't work as good. Yes it's better than nothing, but actual way oil is not that much more expensive.

Way oil is designed to stay slippery under lots of pressure with relatively low speed movements. Think about how you are trying to move a 100 lb. machine saddle in .0001" increments. Way oil helps make that movement fluid.

In general, there's lots of different kinds of oils out there and I would start with what the manual recommends, but at the very least I would consider the following oils separately and generally not interchangeable.

Spindle Oil
Way Oil
Hydraulic Oil
Non-detergent motor oil, which doesn't have all the additives and is good for general purpose stuff like door hinges.

Each oil also has a grade or weight, with is important as some oils need to stay put vertically, others need to climb gears, others need to be light enough to be pushed through pumps, etc. etc. etc.
 
I just looked on there web site and it's $20 something a gallon, was that a special they you found?
 
Wow this hasn't come up for a while. The longtime standard was Mobil Vactra (2). This was reformulated at some point on request from the printing industry removing the tackifiers, the old Vactra 2 is now more or less Vacuoline 1409.

Any oil designated as way oil should be fine, the standard viscosity is ISO 68. That covers everything except some huge machine or very special applications.
 
The formula has been changed and there really are no tackifiers in it anymore.

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Can you please provide a source for this ?? I have talked to our Mobil rep,and she assures me there are indeed tackifiers present in the current Vactra #2 . Not saying you are wrong or she is right, but I would like to know for sure. If you have a verified source I can quote I can have additional talks with our rep !



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To say that the one-shot and intermittent type oilers on older machines need the same oil compared to the constant drip oilers on newer machines seems a bit odd.

Tackifiers should help the oil stick and not run off of the ways on a machine with intermittent oiling, but a constant oiling type machine may not need the oil to be so sticky. The excess way oil runs down into a trough and around to a convenient outlet for capture on my '98 Mori Seiki lathe. It requests Shell Tonnaoil T68.
 
I use Shell Tonna S3 M. It is the recommended oil for NLX, but it was also the easiest to get around here. Mixes right in with the coolant though...
 
Box ways or linear guides? Big difference. Vactra#2 for box ways. Our linear guide machines use DTE 24, lighter than the Vactra#2. A motor oil with sulfur in it is a guaranteed headache if your way oil drains into the coolant in your sump. Those nastyass microbes LOVE sulfur and your coolant life will go way down. Kinda like throwing a plate of hot wings to Roseanne Barr.
 








 
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