Recommendation? Favorite pivot oil?

t5brick

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Up until recently I’ve just owned Benchmade knives and whenever they needed sharpening or other service, I’d take them to the factory and let them deal with it. Now I own 3 spyderco knives and that’s not as easy of an option, so I want to start with proper maintenance and I’m curious about pivot oil.

I’ve searched around and found a couple older threads with recommendations, but nothing new. Does anyone have any suggestions or can anyone point me in the right direction?
 
I did the oil thing, but oil seeps into everything. Grease works better for me. I'm trying white lithium right now & it seems to work without it getting everywhere & attracting everything. Not as fluid as oil though.
 
I use food grade mineral oil in a syringe. That way I can put a drop exactly where I want to. I like cutting apples and am tolerant of eating them, so I use food safe oils on my blade.

Lots of people recommend 10w nano oil, specialty greases (like the one that Chris Reeves supplies) or Benchmade's blue lube, and others will chime in with their favorites.

My personal experience is that the fit/finish of the knife, how polished the washers are (or bearing quality), pivot tightness, detent ball smoothness, lockbar tension, etc. all play a more significant role in the quality of the action than the type of lubricant used. The first thing you should look at is the pivot tightness. If there is horizontal blade play, tighten it. If it's too stiff, loosen it. If you can't get it adjusted the way you like, then you can start to look at the other parameters.

If everything else is dialed in, I guess the type of oil could matter...

My advice is to put less lube on your knife than you think you need. The more lubricant you put on, the more easily dust and gunk get in the mechanism, thus ruining the benefit of having the lube in the pivot in the first place. I use one drop on either side of the washer/bearing and one drop in the detent hole and I'm good to go. Even that may be too much, sometimes I'll wipe the excess of the 3 drops off the blade before putting it back together.

If you don't want to disassemble the knife, wash it out in soap and water, spray with compressed air, and put a drop of your lube of choice in the pivot. That would probably be more maintenance than 90% of the population does with their knives.
 
On phosphor bronze and nylon washers I use Thin layer of white lithium grease with a TINY drop of gun oil on both sides of the washers and a THIN coating applied to the inside of the blades pivot hole. on a knife with bearings I use only a TINY drop of gun oil in order not to attract dust and pocket lint. I always put a coating of lithium grease inside the pivot hole of the blade but you have to careful not to get any on the pivot screw threads and a tiny dab of grease on the detent ball and detent tack of the blade will be suffice. Gun oil and lithium grease work fine for me but Nano oil and Nano grease are the rage now if your going to stock up on lubricants and Nick Shabazz on youtube has a video explaining the benefits of them if you need to learn more. have fun and remember any lube is better than no lube at all.
 
Collector Knives website suggests using Slick50, the automotive stuff.
I've been meaning to try it myself. Seems like a great choice.
Hmm Slick50 could take the place of my Lithium and gun oil mix. I'll have to give it a try myself.
 
I use food grade mineral oil in a syringe.

I’ve got some of this for my fixed blade knives. I’ll give it a shot first. Thanks!

On phosphor bronze and nylon washers I use Thin layer of white lithium grease with a TINY drop of gun oil on both sides of the washers and a THIN coating applied to the inside of the blades pivot hole. on a knife with bearings I use only a TINY drop of gun oil in order not to attract dust and pocket lint.

I’m going to shy away from taking my Benchmade knives apart because I don’t want to deal with omega springs. Plus two of them are automatics, so I’d have to deal with that spring too. Plus they factory is 10 minutes away, so it’s easy to let them deal with it!

My Spyderco knives, on the other hand, all appear to be much simpler in design. The PM2 and Spydiechef are on PB washers and the Mantra 3 is on bearings. I’ll probably take the PM2 apart first.
 
Haven't oiled a knife for a long time, when I did it was 3 in 1 oil. Back than I usually had the knife disassembled and applied it by rag to the parts in a light coat and reassembled.

It's what I had, it worked. Not sure if I could tell the difference between oils with how I did it even if I tried.
 
3 in 1 in my house, have been using this on my knives for years and no problems. My Guns go a different route though.
 
I use WD-40 Specialist PTFE dry lube Spray, it's dirt & dust resistant, it cures dry, never migrates and pivots glides like butter.
 
Avoid nano oil. It's expensive snake oil. It's just mineral oil that you can get for a few doll hairs and nano costs a whole lot more for zero improvement.

New lube out now is "knife pivot lube" I think anyone who tries it will like it better than what they are currently using.

Collector Knives website suggests using Slick50, the automotive stuff.
I've been meaning to try it myself. Seems like a great choice.
Slick50 is snake oil.
 
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I like the BM Blue Lube, but when that runs out I’ll probably use CLP.
 
I use WD-40 Specialist PTFE dry lube Spray, it's dirt & dust resistant, it cures dry, never migrates and pivots glides like butter.

I had read that locksmiths shouldn't use dry lube cuz it would gunk up. I realize we don't cut with locks & tumblers of course but that info always stuck with me. Maybe weather related? Been a while since I researched it.
 
I had read that locksmiths shouldn't use dry lube cuz it would gunk up. I realize we don't cut with locks & tumblers of course but that info always stuck with me. Maybe weather related? Been a while since I researched it.

Yes I have heard that too, But since I Use that the results are quite the opposite.
 
Wonder why someone hasn't slapped a "Nano dry-lube" label on it. It always sounded like the perfect lube for knives.
 
Wonder why someone hasn't slapped a "Nano dry-lube" label on it. It always sounded like the perfect lube for knives.

My collection contains in major part old slip-joints and the results where very good with those. But my more modern Benchmades... They really love it.
 
Collector Knives website suggests using Slick50, the automotive stuff.
I've been meaning to try it myself. Seems like a great choice.

Slick 50 is a Cerflon / Ceramic Reinforced PTFE You should be able to fidget up to 6000 rpm with your knife with that stuff. :)
 
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