Well, I will just have to see, used it in a Stuart and a Bachmann.
In my experience, if the gears are of high quality and are well adjusted, Labelle lubricants are sufficient.
Simon
What I think I don't understand well enough is why Chris hasn't developed a plastic-safe product packaged and targeted to modelers. That is particularly strange considering the wide apparent range of Nano-Lube's products ... none of which seem to be noncrystalline-polymer friendly.
Hi Overmod,
I guess that the bottom line as far as we model railroaders are concerned is that some of the carrying oils used with the Nano Oils might not play nice with certain parts of our expensive rolling stock, so caution is advised. Like I said before, don't use it as a universal lubricant, and if you aren't sure where to use it then don't use it at all. The differences in performance are not life shattering.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Some of you might find this discussion of the 'alternative' form of nanobearing additive interesting. For those who remember the classic era of 'nondetonation nanodiamond' and the competing claims of that kind of snake-oil tribology, this may prove a charming call down memory lane. Remember that compression of C60 and some other fullerenes can promptly produce a metastable diamond lattice at the ~35,000 carbon lattice size that was being touted as 'effective' for, say, worn swing-bridge or turntable bearings...
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/technical-documents/articles/technology-spotlights/monodispersed-nanodiamonds-applications.html
The thing of particular interest here is the discussion of carrier fluids of different characteristics. It is not difficult to see that picking a 'plastic compatible' lubricant base or mix -- particularly for a product to be sold in hobby sizes at hobby markups -- is not difficult to do.
One of the issues with the 'battling titans' version of nanodiamond was that at least one of the 'alternatives' did not provide the kind of spherical geometry so neatly assumed in the Sigma-Aldrich article. This worked niftily for mating metal surfaces, where the nanodiamond particles -- by themselves a good diamond abrasive! -- would embed and then provide a diamond-hard, more or less self-restoring hard coating on the facing surfaces, with good contact tribology at 'asperities' where the lubricant film were starved or compromised. That of course doesn't work at all for relatively soft surfaces, even if pieces ground off from the surfaces became plated with diamond and therefore act as a kind of analogue of needle bearings...
snjroyI believe Dave (Hon30 critter) had a horror story about them.
Hi Simon,
I didn't personally have a bad experience with the proprietary 'Nano-Oil' products, but what I reported was a very harsh warning from Geoff Baxter who was the owner of Hollywood Foundaries. He made a wide variety of powered truck drive systems called "Bull Ants", all of which used a plastic frame which proved to be unsuitable for use with Nano Oil. A large number of his customers had reported that the truck frames were disintegrating. He ended up having to rebuild numerous Bull Ant drives. The maker on Nano-Oil denied any responsibility for the problem.
My personal opinion is that Nano-Oil should be used very carefully. I will testify to how well it works, but just don't go spreading it all over everything in sight! It seems to work with Delrin.
Regards,
rrebellWell the thing that failed is Polystyrene which in the case of the person who said something.
A simplistic version: the polymer chains can be thought of as like tangled yarn, or perhaps spaghetti, and the solvent molecules get in between the tangles and push them apart, so the volume increases randomly (the swelling) and the bonds or even crosslinks between the chains get poorer or weaker (the softening and loss of strength).
It should not be difficult to find a lubricating material that does not cause those effects in noncrystalline copolymers, but that is compatible with the nanobearing material. I'll leave that discussion to practicing chemists or tribologists who will know the right stuff in their sleep.
Isn't the 'color additive' finely-divided particulate carbon?
Well the thing that failed is Polystyene which in the case of the person who said something. It is colored black, I know this because I own one. Found out also that the color additive can cause things to fail and thjat the ratio could be wrong for a product. So it boils down to there are too many variables to safely say anything is compatable with all plastics.
zstripeIt was proven after learning although, the Nano Oil was a great find as far as lubricants go, that it was not compatible with ABS plastics in the long term.
Not that it's high technology to source a plastic-compatible carrier oil -- or for the Nano-Lube people or someone like Christian St.Claire to make another 'variant' expressly as a plastic-safe hobby lube... not as if there aren't more variants than Intel processors already.
snjroy I think they can damage some plastics... I believe Dave (Hon30 critter) had a horror story about them. Simon
I think they can damage some plastics... I believe Dave (Hon30 critter) had a horror story about them.
Simon,
You are correct! I was also in some conversations with Dave about the Nano Oil. It was proven after learning although, the Nano Oil was a great find as far as lubricates go, that it was Not compatible with ABS plastics in the long term. It was going in 2017.
Take Care!
Frank
It was given to me by a fellow hobbiest who used to be a machinest. He was a great hobbiest who build the valve gear on my Mantua articulated kit in 15 min., done. I would have been lucky to put in one rivet in that time.
I believe the 'nano-bearings' are buckminsterfullerenes, possibly partially fluorinated. These should work reasonably well on plastics, unlike nanolubricants that use some form of nanodiamond. But I do NOT know the compatibility of the carrier oil they use, and I seem to recall some issues with different plastics.
It's often hard to assess some of the claims of these miracle proprietary formulations in the absence of careful long-term tests, and often the first few pages of Internet searching provide nothing of particularly objective value in understanding precisely why the potions would work or not in particular circumstances.
Buddy gave me a bottle of it and it seem to work wonders. Put some on thruck of a Stuart VO1000 as is runs twice as good as before. I didn't bother to remove the old grease as my machinest freid said for our usage, it didn't mater.