Open Gear Lube?

Believe it or not, I have never bought any! My dad worked for the railroad and brought home a case of the stuff. He worked on a swing bridge in Buffalo NY, called Harbor Draw on the section of the Erie Barge Canal on the Niagara River, beside the Army Corp of Engineers station. It goes a long way!
Pierre
 
Just have to watch with EP additives. They will corrode yellow metals, like bronze. Some good reading here.
 
I use Tri-Flow. Sprays on wet but the carrier dries and leaves a PTFE film. Quiet running, no flinging, no grease to clean up and I haven't noticed any significant wear. My drive belt is right behind and below my gear train so I don't want grease flying all over the place. Tri-Flow works for me.
 
Splat said:
Just have to watch with EP additives. They will corrode yellow metals, like bronze. Some good reading here.
Click to expand...

Many EP formulations these days use inactive sulfur derivatives and many can be used with yellow metals. Years ago I had spoken to the technical department at Amsoil and Mobil about this concern, and they indicated that their automotive and marine gear oils do not have problems with yellow metals. I used their synthetic marine gear oil in my mill gear head, it ran significantly cooler and picked up ~100 RPM on the top end. There is sometimes an issue that in certain manual transmissions that the EP products can peel the softer brass from synchronizers, but I do not think there is a manual transmission today that doesn't have yellow metals in it and all the newer automotive gear oils have EP additives. The other factor for EP sulfer additives is that their effectiveness and reaction with yellow metals is temperature dependent, so they do not become activated and they have limited corrosive affects at temperatures under 100C. They are often not recommended for lower operating temperatures or slower moving gears. http://www.machinerylubrication.com/Read/1406/extreme-pressure-additives

I still feel that a good hydraulic/gear oil is your best bet for longevity in your lathe. Their are sometimes where a manufacture may have certain specifications for gearbox or carriage oils. Usually for newer lathes (open/closed) gearboxes an ISO68 hydraulic/gear oil is commonly used. On the open gears I have been using Super Impact "green" grease, which is has very high adhesion and anti-splatter capabilities. My open gears under the belt cover use to be very noisy and the gears would sing, after I used the Super Impact grease on them the noise was significantly reduced, the grease is still on the gears more than a year later. I only used a little, and have not had any issues with swarf or chips in the grease. You can actually see the grease sticking to the teeth like a web as the gears mesh and then release. Problem is I have not found a source that sells this grease in small quantities, I have been using mine for 20+ years.
 

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Lubriplate 176 or Gear Shield Extra Heavy (also Lubriplate)
 
I use Mobilith AW2 on a Jet GW-1340W. I think that's what they recommended.

Ken
 
Any oil is better than none, how about chain saw bar oil, good anti fling properties but still oily enough to drain where needed.
 
I think that using heavy open gear lubes and EP lubes on end train gears is a solution in search of a problem, and that use of a sticky oil, such as way lube or bar oil is all that is needed; it is seldom that I have seen a lathe with any significant wear on the end train of gears, and I am talking lathes that approach 80 years of age. If you need to handle (change out) the gears for such as threading, lubricants such as open gear and molybdenum fortified are a challenge to remove from the hands! I think some of the noise in end trains may come from poor center to center adjustment, that is too tight or loose engagement of the teeth; with DP gearing, the teeth are cut .020" deeper for clearance, so that should be the distance from the crest of one tooth to the gullet of the opposite gear. And agreed with other writers above, heavy lubes attract chips, causing more wear and subsequent noise; keep the gears clean and lightly oiled.
 
I use what my owners manual calls for. ISO68 on the quick change, and the same on the change gears. I ran it with only moly grease for a while until I could see the moly had coated everything, now I just add a small bit of ISO68 during lubing. Letting the moly soak into the gears significantly reduced the noise. I expect it will need to be replenished from time to time, or maybe I will stumble over something better.
I follow the camp that believes grease is a bad idea on change gears, small chips travel down the spindle and fall out the end. Even with the spindle extending out of the cover, the chips still get inside it.

A side note, just cause you see oil/grease clinging to the teeth, it does not mean it is doing a proper job. There is a small amount of sliding as the teeth mesh, so the lube must be able to do double duty as both a high pressure lube, and a conventional "sliding" lube. Pretty much anything designed for the purpose is good.
 
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