Wax and grease

[Paul Stroik]

The Johnsons paste wax I use is found in the housewares section. There are two types. The one in Housewares is without Silicon and has the red stripe one the Yellow can.

[Ron Bontz]

Dan. I also found Minwax paste wax at a Menards some time back.

[Mike Cozad]

I just this week picked up a can of Johnson's Paste Wax at the Borg for about 6 bucks. It was in the same aisle as Windex, Simple Green, bleach, etc.

[glenn bradley]

Right. JPW at the BORG is stored with the cleaners and floor care products around my parts.

[Dave Lehnert]

The wax is found in the cleaner section of a store. Home Depot has it where the trash cans, mops, buckets are located.
Sears Hardware has it. Ace hardware.

I remember reading a long time ago not to use an auto wax on your tools. Can't remember the reason given. A friend used auto wax on a jointer and it was not as slick.

[Dan Hintz]

Well, that explains it, then... the halfwit kept insisting if they had it, it would be in the paint aisle

[John Fabre]

Briwax original is what I use on all metal table tops, never had a problem after ten years of using it.

[Keith Outten]

Johnson's Paste Wax has been my choice for decades for cast iron surfaces. Should you wait to long to remove it or you prefer to let it dry your randon orbital sander is the perfect tool to polish the dry wax on the surface. Use a White 3M pad on your ROS, this is a killer way to rub out a finish on a project as well.

I use bearing grease on my ShopBot gear rack, it is nasty and because of the location of the rack it has ruined many T-Shirts. Recently I was told to use candle wax on the gear racks of my CAMaster Stinger. I thought I would throw that out as a suggestion, some of you may find it to be valuable.

If you only use your ROS for sanding you are missing the boat. Get a set of 3M pads and then consider Trizac disks for polishing pastic and kitchen counter tops, I'm sure that you can find a polishing bonnet that will work wonders for some applications like removing hard water stains from a shower or tub
.

[Joe Angrisani]

Dan.... As far as greases go, there's a thousand choices. In a nutshell, the white lithium greases are the thinest and suitable for low-speed, and tight-clearance situatons. Your standard dinosaur-based bearing greases (plain ol' gold as well as red and blue) will be fine for greasing most things like trunion pivots and gears. Stay away from the black moly greases.

One of my favorite little secret lubes is "Phil's Tenacious Oil". You can find it at any real bicycle shop. Comes in a small squeeze bottle. It's just runny enough to flow into places where you'd think WD40 or white lithium grease or 3-in-1 oil might be the choice, but the solvents then evaporate leaving the wonderful lube INSIDE sleeves and such, not just on the exterior. And it clings tenaciously, just as you would expect. Little green plastic bottle about 3" high and 1" in diameter.

[Darin Higginbotham]

Dan, I'm just going to throw this out there take it or leave it. I used to use lithium grease but got sick of cleaning the sawdust that stuck to the grease out of the gears. The product that I went to was Dupont's Teflon Multi-Use, a dry lube from the borg that is recomended for factory,farm and home, it eliminates the sawdust gunk mess been using for year and half with no problems, just my 2 cents. Plus it sprays upside down.

[Karl Brogger]

I've been rubbing the decks down with paraffin wax, buffing with steel wool, then applying Bostik TopCoat in between waxings. Ridiculously slippery, and it lasts a fair amount of time.

As far as the worm gears go, grease is basically grease in this application. Its a pretty low stress environment, nothing to fancy is needed. Just had a thought though, and excavator buddy prefers Mystic JS-6 grease because it seems to be stickier than the others. I use my saws daily, but only have to grease the tilt and height mechanicals a couple of times a year. I use a synthetic, but thats only because that is what's in the grease gun for trailer bearings.

[Don Whitten]

Well, that explains it, then... the halfwit kept insisting if they had it, it would be in the paint aisle

Lowe's stocks the Johnson Paste Wax with the household cleaners etc., which BTW is located in the aisle that is next to the paint department and stocked by the paint department personal, as some of these chemicals are also flammable this department has extra fire sprinkler systems installed in the racking as well as overhead in case of a fire. The wax is not heavly sold so stock is limited to one facing and can easily be overlooked with all the chemicals in the run.

[Rich Engelhardt]

+ Whatever to Johnson paste wax.

For grease, I usually grab whatever gun grease I have handy, which is usually Tetra.

[Dan Hintz]

Stay away from the black moly greases.

Any particular reason?




Considering some of this grease will be lubing the threaded shaft (meant for cutting threads) on my metal lathe, and this shaft is along the front of the machine and open to being touched, dark-colored greases are concern (albeit minor). I've lost a few decent shirts due to permanent dark grease stains.

[Joe Angrisani]

Any particular reason?

Moly grease is a different animal. The grease is just a carrier for the molybdenum disulfide (don't shoot me if I got that wrong). With moly grease, it's the moly-disulfide that does the lubricating even if the grease itself drys out. Think of it more as a dry lube in a greasy carrier, not 'grease-grease'.

I would seriously consider Phil's Tenacious Oil for that threaded shaft. It was "designed" for bicycle chains, so it absolutely won't get thrown as the shaft spins. In it's liquid state it will flow and coat the threads nicely. Run the widget back and forth on the threaded shaft a few time, then when the solvents evaporate, you're left with a super-thin, super-effective lube.