Lubricants to use with Rolex 3135

[nickelsilver]

37 minutes ago, rodabod said:

Slightly off-topic: has anyone ever tried Epilame on clock bushes? The oil does tend to creep due to gravity and natural spreading.

I know a guy who does, he does really high end restoration and custom fabrication though. He uses an eye dropper to dose the bushings, probably uses more in Fixodrop value that what most normal clock services would cost!

[clockboy]

The " Epilame" is applied after the clean ie applied as a treatment. 

[clockboy]

Never used on a clock. Just too expensive and I see no advantage.

[Tudor]

Hey! It's Halloween, so lets resurrect an old thread!

Epilame- it's expensive. I was going to try and make some myself... Then I discovered this stuff:

"HOROTEC episurf-neo", which is supossed to be the same thing, but it's like 1/10th the cost.

Any comments on it?

[JohnR725]

 

Their website looks impressive so does the tech sheet. But can we really trust the product if it's this cheap obviously we should be suspicious.

Then the second link is being irritating because it's not letting me show you the link that I found so you go there in search for Epilame You'll see all the supplies to go with your inexpensive product. Unfortunately no expensive products to compare to.

There isn't any reason why cheaper products especially if they're being sold as a watch product can't work. Then what was interesting is on another watch site and I was thinking it didn't look that inexpensive because their cost was basically twice what is costs here. I think the 50 mL bottle was close to $100. It's one of the interesting problems of online watch supply people that sometimes they're not always that she you need to shop around.

There isn't any reason why other products can't work just as well and conceivably be cheaper. Some of these products are used in industrial applications and they obviously can't be superexpensive.

What would be an interesting experiment to try would be to do it the old-fashioned way sort of. The original product is stearic acid and I read a patent once about vapor application was very very good. There is a cleaning machine out there that's name I can't remember that it actually vaporize stearic acid for applying it to the watch parts. Supposedly with the vapor you get a really thin even coding versus the fluids that if you're not careful they evaporate with time and the concentration changes and you can end up with a thicker coating than you want that may be bad but I don't know how but. I is know I've met people to get really excited about how it's all applied heated treated etc. and dropping apart into the bottle itself is a total sin even though that's a convenient way to do it.

https://www.surfactis.com/en/produits/episurf-2/

Then the second link is being irritating

https://www.jewelerssupplies.com

 

 

 

[Tudor]

Yes, I was looking into (and found a reasonable cost small sample picked out) of Steric acid. The only issue I want resolved is the carrier, and then the concentration in solution. 
 

I want to avoid alcohol, as it would limit use on pallet forks. I believe it is water soluble but that’s not an ideal solvent for steel parts. Acetone may work but I’m not certain. Toluene is on the list too. 
 

The $100 bottle for applying it is another hurdle; but I’ve been working on that and may have a lower cost solution. I know another member here was also working on a home made bottle but I never saw how that turned out. I was thinking a second bottle would be good for dilute oil for reversers too. 

[nickelsilver]

5 hours ago, Tudor said:

Yes, I was looking into (and found a reasonable cost small sample picked out) of Steric acid. The only issue I want resolved is the carrier, and then the concentration in solution. 
 

I want to avoid alcohol, as it would limit use on pallet forks. I believe it is water soluble but that’s not an ideal solvent for steel parts. Acetone may work but I’m not certain. Toluene is on the list too. 
 

The $100 bottle for applying it is another hurdle; but I’ve been working on that and may have a lower cost solution. I know another member here was also working on a home made bottle but I never saw how that turned out. I was thinking a second bottle would be good for dilute oil for reversers too. 

I have one of the machines John mentioned above that heats the stearic acid to make a vapor. It works great, but I do in practice use Fixodrop on customer watches. If you want to try the vapor method it just needs to be heated to about 80 degrees C, with the parts in a basket or something not in contact with it, in a container that can be closed. 30 to 60 seconds is enough time.

 

The first liquid epilame that Moebius marketed was Aretol, which was stearic acid in a solvent carrier. I don't know what the solvent was, but it wasn't alcohol. I have spoken to old watchmakers who mixed their own using pure isopropyl alcohol (99%) mixing 1:100 by weight. I have tried that and find that it leaves a visible film, didn't follow up with different ratios as I have the vapor method and Fixodrop. But if you try it with alcohol don't worry about it melting your shellac, it only needs to be in contact a few seconds. In fact the above machine, the Greiner U2, uses alcohol as the rinse for all the parts. The way it is designed the balance and fork get rinsed by themselves for a short time in fresh alcohol (it distills the alcohol continuously), then dried as the other parts get rinsed and the rinse is drained back into the distiller then regenerates for the final rinse. It's a very cool machine.

[Tudor]

I can heat some on a hot plate and see how it does.

I have sample panels of cold rolled steel and titanium I can mess around with, to see how an oil drop holds shape over time.

I think I'll order the acid and play around with it a bit. It seems I have some time as the new oil I ordered has been a week in transit with no expected deliver date... Something up with FedEx lately.

[Tudor]

My package was reshipped today... FedEx lost it apparently. 

[Rafael]

@clockboy, jumping in on this old post since something is still not clear to me. Should you just dunk the entire reverser wheel in the epilame? 

[JohnR725]

On 1/30/2020 at 9:33 AM, rodabod said:

Slightly off-topic: has anyone ever tried Epilame on clock bushes? The oil does tend to creep due to gravity and natural spreading.

as it would be astronomically expensive to dip your clock plates in you could brush it on. Brush it on both sides of where the pivot goes. Then follow up with a piece of peg wood to clear out the hole and may be just a tiny bit of the countersink. I think that would work it would keep your oil word supposed to be.

 

[clockboy]

While on topic found this PDF which covers lubricants including (pp7) Epilame.

BTI-The_Practical_Lubrication_of_Clocks_and_Watches.pdf

[Tudor]

Someone had asked about Epilame coating (from ye old Rolex service bulletin):

 

And I have yet to try mine. I will do on the 565 I need that damn spring replaced and then I'll do the usual suspects and see how it does (Episurf Neo).

I also bought two of the $100 German bottles (for much les than $100 for the pair) out of Germany, but they are being transported via mule team, and they aren't good swimmers at all... Still need screens, but I'm less concerned with that. One will be for Epilame and the other will be for Lubretta.

[Rafael]

18 hours ago, Tudor said:

Someone had asked about Epilame coating (from ye old Rolex service bulletin):

 

And I have yet to try mine. I will do on the 565 I need that damn spring replaced and then I'll do the usual suspects and see how it does (Episurf Neo).

I also bought two of the $100 German bottles (for much les than $100 for the pair) out of Germany, but they are being transported via mule team, and they aren't good swimmers at all... Still need screens, but I'm less concerned with that. One will be for Epilame and the other will be for Lubretta.

I thought I posted here and my question disappeared for some reason  Anyway, thanks Tudor. I hope my Fixodrop will arrive shortly and then I can service my Rolex Submariner. I don't have the specialty bottle but I'll try to improvise something.