Quit lubing your knife to pieces

mike_mck2 said:
Well there you go, I guess your knife did need lube. Mine do not.

My first post in the thread was a not a question, it was an assertion.
None of my knives need lube, but obviously YMMV, as well as others'.
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If you had worded things more like this in the beginning you wouldn't be getting the smackdown from so many people. Your initial attitude was "This is right and if you disagree then you are dimwitted." That kind of attitude rarely goes over well anywhere. If you don't want a discussion, which inherently involves at least two sides, then don't post things in a discussion forum. If you only want kudos for your brilliance then maybe you should start a blog.

I will agree with you that some knives can work fine without lubrication. Old fashioned slip joints are not one of them. I have had traditional folders with such stiff springs that opening them without some lubricant was very difficult and hard on the thumb. Many linerlocks have washers which make lubriction much less important because they are essentially self lubricating. Swiss Army knives don't need a lot of lubrication usually because they are so highly polished from the start.

I also agree with you that many people use more lubricant than needed.

Do you oil the hinges in your house?
 
mike_mck2 said:
Yes, I have tuf-glide, and when I thought knives needed lube, I used it.
While it's not as bad as some, it's still not needed, on my knives.
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and

mike_mck2 said:
Furthermore, I say that folding knives do not need lubricant, again based on what I myself have personally seen.
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Contradictory statements abound.

This whole mess could have been avoided if the word "most" had been inserted strategically from the very beginning (as in "most folding knives do not need lubricant"). Then, most people would have just posted "Yes, you may be correct" instead of getting fired up and swapping banter.

Yikes. :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Peace.
 
Thomas Linton said:
Confidence based upon a single person's subjective experience has a limited power to convince. Appropriately lubing the moving parts of metal tools is a practice sanctified by the centuries of experience of millions of tool users and the recommendations of thousands of tool makers. If they are all wrong, it will take more that one testimonial, however forcefully asserted, to count at all in this discussion.
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Many times, many people have believed things concretely for a long time and then one person asserted differently and yes they were all wrong, numbers really don't make an arguement.

For example how many people sharpen knives at 20 degrees per side because everyone knows that is the correct angle and if you go under that the edge will be too fragile and you will lose edge retention?

Before arguing if folders "need" lubricant or not from Mike point of view, you would first need to ask Mike what he requires behavior wise, and how he uses and what he values in performance.

Using knives in very dirty conditions for example most if not all oil based lubricants tend to make the situation worse as knives become near impossible to clean because you can't rinse/flush out dirt.

If you want knives buttery easy to open it is hard to achieve this without lubricant, but this is very difficult to maintain on working knives so it isn't difficult to see how someone would not value that at all.

-Cliff
 
The original poster doesn't seem to like the way many have responded to his question, er, I mean, assertion. :) Well, it's probably because most seem to agree, the tone of his posts has been a bit condescending, nobody likes that, but here's the thing. I read a few of his other posts, and oddly enough, there are other threads he started, with a similar, broad, sweeping "assertion" that ended up drawing almost the exact same sorts of critical replies. I don't think he is a troll, but, there's an old saying: "If one person says you're a horse, you can laugh at them. If 2 people say it, you should give it some thought. If 3 people say you're a horse, it's time to buy a saddle." :)

My point obviously is that maybe the original poster needs to look at his writing style and forum behavior, it's clearly not a coincidence that he has received virtually identical, negative responses in other threads he started, and if he wants to avoid this in the future, maybe a change in attitude and tone would be advisable.
 
mike_mck2 said:
It's true, most knives do not need lube. Just a good cleaning, and that's about it.
Quite a few lubes on the market not only are not needed, but they actually increase the wear & tear, because they gum up and collect dirt/dust/debris, even when used sparingly, and most seem to be applied quite liberally.

I have explained this to numerous people, and they just do not understand.
I try to tell them, if it's not broke, you won't hurt it by not fixing it. Don't lube it unless it just absolutely needs it, and even then use very very little.
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Mike,

1. What knives do you use without lube?

2. Under what conditions do you use your knives (around losts of dust)?

3. What lubricants have you tried, and specifically have you tried Miltec 1?

My personal experience has been that you don't need lube knives in which the contact points are FRN or Zytel. Examples include Spyderco's Calypso, Jr. and Delica. I believe some lube used sparingly is a good idea for knives in which the contact points are metal. Examples include Sebenza, Benchmade 710HS, Spyderco Manix (newer one with phosphor-bronze washers), Camillus Dominator (PB washers installed), and slipjoints which have brass-steel contact points (Queen, Case, etc.). I feel a very significant difference in the smoothness of opening and closing on these knives when lubed as opposed to unlubed. I use Miltec 1, and have never had a much of a problem with it attracting dirt or dust. But then it's rare for me to subject myself, let alone my knives, to really dusty conditions.
 
No lube??? I just couldn't live like that. The real trick is to always remove excess, and by that I mean if you can see the lubrication layer there's prolly too much. The thin/dry film lubes like Militec and FP-10 are my favorites as when you wipe all the excess off they still provide good lubricating properties without worrying about collecting dust and grit. Breakfree does too, but it's not quite as good a lubricant and tends to work better when there's a visible but thin coating on all wear surfaces, this generally leads to dust collecting on the exposed oil. Tuf Glide to my recollection wasn't all that it was cracked up to be as a lubricant. It worked well enough, and was better than standard gun oils or 3in1, but it wasn't a match for breakfree in terms of lubrication.
 
Mike has a good point about lubing.
Cliff made a few good points (dirt, etc.)

Also, how good a lube do you really need for a knife? It's not like a heavy-duty machine with high speed, high force, high temperature, etc.

I've tried all sorts of lubes over the years, especially on my bicycles. Some things work better than others.

On my knives I prefer to avoid lube because of grit accumulation, and I'm fine with less than perfect smoothness in my pivots; pretty-good smoothness is good enough for me. Mostly I clean my knives and then leave them as is. That works pretty well for me, but it's not for everybody. When I do lube I use Crisco shortening, sparingly.
 
"Does a Sebenza need lubrication?"

Near as I can tell from this board, a Sebenza doesn't "need" anything. It is a self-contained unit of pure bliss, and it is a privilege if a Sebenza let's you carry it and thereby increase the joy ... no ultimately the meaning ... of your life.
 
mike_mck2 said:
No, they would benefit from none, to speed the break in process, and to assure that the action wears in smoothly.

If you think knives need lube, of whatever type, then that's what you should do. My personal experience lets me know that they do not in fact need lube.
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And you learned this where buddy?

If you are right then car engines would run better with no lubrication. I agree that knives may not "need" oil. It however does make them last longer. The small amount of debris that may get in between blade, will do far less damage than metal against metal.

So how about you suggest to Benchmade and Spyderco and the others.....that it's better for them to never use lube. Also let them know that they can forget about the bronze washers. Just tighten the blade down so that it wears on the liners. That's good for metal!

I can't help but think that you've actually never worked with metal for real in any way shape or form.

Have a nice day :D

mike_mck2 ------------------> Troll
 
yeah, lubing a knife that has teflon or even brass bushings is counterproductive. it will just attract dust/sand/dirt/etc and wear the pivot even more. a clean pivot with teflon/brass bushings will work far smoother than one that is gummed up with oil/dirt.

that said, some knives lack teflon or brass bushings, or have worn pivots, etc and a drop of lube will make them work smoother. i always put a drop of lube in my slipjoints - especially carbon ones - both to displace moisture and reduce wear on the pivot. but for modern framelocks/linerlocks its pretty unneccessary.

if your bushings wear out on pretty much any modern linerlock/framelock made by a reputable manufacturer usually all it takes is an email to their warranty or customer service department and your new bushings are on the way.

cheers,
-gabriel
 
wow, just read the rest of this thread.
now before someone starts flaming me for expressing my opinion, let me give an example of the conditions i live in:
im across the street from a beach. there is sand EVERYWHERE. my entire lot is sand, my driveway is sand. i have a beaten up EDC M16, and the other day i noticed the liners were darkening with corrosion (just from normal use, grrr bloody cheap zytel models), so i cleaned off the rust and literally dropped the knife into a can full of lube and let it soak a bit. then i dried it off, cleaned out all the excess oil, and clipped it to my pocket again. i went to the beach that day, and was just messing around whittling some driftwood, poking at things, etc. i was bored out of my mind because my g/f was taking forever picking shells. anyways, to make a long story short when i tried to close the knife it was just 'cruuunnnchh' from all the sand in the pivot. i looked inside and it was full of sand at the pivot, and all along the inside of the liners. ive never had this happen before because i never oil the pivot on this type of knife. i didnt drop it in the sand, this was just from whatever particles came off my hands and the wood.
to make a long story short i cleaned out the knife with soap and water, pressurized air and q-tips, and just left it dry - with just the teflon bearings at the pivot. i dropped it in the sand today and i just had to smack it against my thigh a couple of times to shake all the sand out. no more crunch at the pivot when closing.

which do you think does more damage to the knife? simple wear on a free, replaceable teflon bushing which is there for this exact purpose? or a gummed up pivot full of dirt and debris?

so unless youre using a knife in a pristine office environment, you are much better off leaving knives with teflon or brass bushings alone. thats what the bushings are there for. even in an office environment, if you dont lubricate the pivot all it takes to clean the pocket lint from the knife is blowing it out. with a lubricated pivot, its stuck in there.

the only time i would oil a pivot now is if i got the knife wet or was using it in damp conditions and something prevented me from cleaning/drying the knife properly between uses. then some thin lubricant would help displace the water and keep the pivot area from trapping water and corroding.

cheers,
-gabriel
 
MGF said:
"Does a Sebenza need lubrication?"

Near as I can tell from this board, a Sebenza doesn't "need" anything. It is a self-contained unit of pure bliss, and it is a privilege if a Sebenza let's you carry it and thereby increase the joy ... no ultimately the meaning ... of your life.
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Ah, another devotee of St. Sebenza of Blades. :)
 
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