Lubing ceramic caged bearings

[Chronovore]

I read the article and liked it a lot. So, if I understood correctly the author is saying indirectly that you should use grease on knives with washers and oil on bearings. This is what I have also heard from other sources and Chris Reeves uses grease on his knives with washers. I have also used grease on my SHF's and they worked very well in spite of the fact that I used way too much. Maybe if I used a lot less the action would be as good as GG. I might try that as an experiment and see if using a thin film makes a difference in the action. I also packed the bearings (Skiff bearings) of a couple of my Ultramar Street knives (Redencion and Liberation) as an experiment and they also worked ok in spite of the fact that I again used way too much. I stuck with the GG as the action of the knife using the grease was not as good as the GG. But, if you are not as concerned with the action as much as I am the grease work well enough and it won't creep like the oil will if you use too much. One more thing, I have not been impressed with the dry lubricants at all. I tried a number of them including curing Militec in the oven and was not overly impressed with the results. Even so, if I chose to run my bearings dry I would use a dry lubricant just in case it did actually help reduce the wear. Otherwise, I would not use a dry lubricant unless the environment dictated using it. And finally, the only lubricants that I found that worked to my satisfaction on OTF's was iNox MX3FG and iNox Plus with PTFE and Heretic OTF lubricant. They were the only lubricants where after I cleaned and lubricated the knife (Heretic Manticore E) it would deploy and lock up the first time and every time thereafter. With every other lubricant the OTF would not lock up after lubricating it and you had to deploy and redeploy the blade over and over until it finally would start locking up consistently. No doubt I was using too much oil but, it was telling that even using too much oil when I used the three lubricants I mentioned the blade would lock up the first time and every time thereafter. Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I intended but, I thought the members might find my little experiments with lubricants useful in some small way.

There is a case to be made for grease with washers. It's a little bit different than sliding in a track, such as blade-mounted stop pins or the rails on a semi-auto. (Coincidentally, Olamic uses oil on their bearings and grease in the track for their stop pin.) Having greased washers in the past, it definitely works.

Nowadays, I tend to just use oil on washers. That's just because most of my knives run on bearings and I keep oil handy in my knife maintenance kit. At the end of the day, they run well on oil too.

There is an extent to which we can overthink this issue. For me, the important things are that the product works, the product is non-toxic, and the product is not stupidly expensive. That last bit is a good reason to skip products like KPL (besides other silliness like added colors or scents). Put it this way. KPL is sold in 10mL bottles for around $14. That seems reasonable until you realize that it works out to around $42 per ounce! In other words, a single ounce of KPL costs about as much as a half-gallon of the quality oil recommended by the article.

 

[MSimcoe]

^^ Thanks.

I run Skiff ceramic bearings on all my flippers - even if they came with ceramics (CIVIVI/WE).

I have tried running dry, super wet and everywhere in between.

I landed on using a very light lube coating on all moving surfaces anyway. They just run better with a tiny bit of lube. They feel smoother, sound smoother etc. The hard part is sometimes not putting too much oil in there - even with the needle applicators.

Can they run without lube? Yes. Do they run better with a slight bit of lube? Yes, IMO.

I agree with you. They can be run dry but, I think they run better with a small amount of Gunny Glide. And I also have a hard time getting the amount right and frequently end up using too much.

 

[Chronovore]

UPDATE: The Lubriplate FMO 350-AW is now available directly from Lubriplate. I can't link a non-supporting dealer due to forum rules. So just search Lubriplate.com for "FMO Gun Oil".

A 1.5oz tube is like $7.50. Even after taxes and shipping, that's still less than a fifth the cost of KPL.