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Lubricants


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On 6/23/2016 at 1:30 PM, sstakoff said:

In the ETA 7750 guide, they refer to HP-1300 as well as HP-1300 SC. I have never heard of "SC" and cannot find anything describing what exactly that is. Does anyone know??Screen Shot 2016-06-23 at 7.26.54 AM.pngScreen Shot 2016-06-23 at 7.27.08 AM.png

Found the same in ETA's tech sheet for cal. 2824-2. After some research, I found out that the only difference between the "HP-1300" and the "HP-1300 SC" (as far as I can tell) is that "HP-1300 SC" is colourless whereas the "HP-1300" is coloured red. I have no idea what the effect on the movement would be though if any!? I'm inclined to use "HP-1300" in all parts servicing my first ETA cal. 2824-2. Good or bad idea?

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9 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Found the same in ETA's tech sheet for cal. 2824-2. After some research, I found out that the only difference between the "HP-1300" and the "HP-1300 SC" (as far as I can tell) is that "HP-1300 SC" is colourless whereas the "HP-1300" is coloured red. I have no idea what the effect on the movement would be though if any!?

If one takes the time to read the entire Moebius catalogue there are many more subtle variations, that are not actually available to retail. As an hobbyist I think one should concentrate on more important issues, like applying correctly, etc.

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On ‎2‎/‎19‎/‎2014 at 12:39 PM, Dwdrummer97 said:

About a year ago when I was just starting to get a bit serious about starting this hobby I bought one of those cheap watch repair kits. I have since replaced all the crap in there with quality versions of what they were supposed to be. My question relating to this topic is this little tube of oil in the kit. Is this just more junk from the kit or does it have any purpose or can it be used in place of any of Marks suggestions? Seems VERY light and my feeling is that the trash can is its new place.

post-56-0-73628100-1392842307_thumb.jpg

  i recognize that "oiler pen".  it is an off the shelve universal oil. not for watches.  better than  wd - 40.  vin

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If one takes the time to read the entire Moebius catalogue there are many more subtle variations, that are not actually available to retail. As an hobbyist I think one should concentrate on more important issues, like applying correctly, etc.

If you over oil, not good: use rodico to remove and start again.


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I spotted this little project on Hackaday.io and wondered if I might be able to do something similar with watch and clock oils.

8304241566955310498.JPG

After all whether you pay though the nose for some secret sauce from Swiss hydrocarbon magicians, or lubricate your alarm clock with used motor oil regurgitated from the sump of a high mileage Indian hatchback, it would be interesting to have some idea of what is in the witches brew that is lubricating your precious parts. 

I wonder if it would be sensitive enough to distinguish genuine Moebius from fake, or prove there is a measurable difference between the $1000 per litre stuff and a bottle of 0W30 from Harbour Freight/B&Q/{Insert name of your local cheap supplier here}.

 

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I think it would be possible to differentiate between significantly different kinds of oils, but as for detecting the additives/compounds, present in small concentrations, which make the more complex oils unique, I wouldn't be too confident that even a nice lab quality UV/Vis would pick these up.

If you'd like to find out what makes up each of the Moebius oils, you can look at the MSDS on CousinsUK, maybe possible to do a homebrew of some of them?

Synthetic motor oils consist mostly of polyolefins, something like Synthalube 9010, according to the MSDS, it is mainly comprised of a mixture of alkyl-aryloxidibutylenglycoles plus several other additives at low concentrations.. not sure where you could get a hold of these...

Edited by JBerry
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This I think is a cool thing to learn from but will not be enough to analyze the components in the oil, we use Raman spectroscopy at work to do this task. Maybe when the dark winter sneaks on I can run some samples to see what result one can get.

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1 hour ago, JBerry said:

Synthetic motor oils consist mostly of polyolefins, something like Synthalube 9010, according to the MSDS, it is mainly comprised of a mixture of alkyl-aryloxidibutylenglycoles plus several other additives at low concentrations.. not sure where you could get a hold of these...

.. you can get hold of them in ... synthetic motor oils :P

All joking aside, that is useful information. I suspect that a homebrew spectrophotometer would make an interesting side project, and of course give me an excuse to make a mess with random oily stuff, although that may lead to mild peril in the form of marital strife.

I do have a couple of underused Raspberry Pi's lying in the grown ups toy box "lab", that could serve as the brains of the device, the cuvette I could probably pick up for a couple of bucks on ebay, the diffraction gratings also. White LEDs, tungsten bulbs, and various other potential light sources I have a plenty.  I presume a cheap USB web cam could serve as the light receiver.

As usual, the missing ingredient is likely to be "spare" time.

 

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Making lubricants is like making a cake !!   :bbq:

All the ingredients are available but often in different quality levels.  When mixed together the cake has all the same ingredients but how much of each?  Then it is processed (mixed and cooked!) to form the cake, but mixed or cooked for how long and in what at what temperature etc.  Then we have a cake, but what does it feel/taste like and does it turn out like you wanted?  :turkey:

Moebius oils seem to use very high quality ingredients and are finely tuned to achieve their desired performance in high end markets.  Lower cost lubricants may work fine but maybe not in the extreme. professionals need to meet customers needs, amateurs/hobbyists doing their own watches etc may be able to use lower cost brands.  You pays your price!

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1 minute ago, HSL said:

This I think is a cool thing to learn from but will not be enough to analyze the components in the oil, we use Raman spectroscopy at work to do this task. Maybe when the dark winter sneaks on I can run some samples to see what result one can get.

There is a hackaday.io project for one of those too, but it requires a lot more effort to implement.

https://hackaday.io/project/1279-ramanpi-raman-spectrometer

The first project looks like a good proof of concept, if we are only looking for comparative values, not absolute analysis.

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1 minute ago, canthus said:

You pays your price!

That is true, but how do you know when you pays that price, that you are always getting what you are paying for?


I'm not sure there is much of a market for fake Moebius, but by the same token, how would we know if it is watch oil or snake oil, or indeed if the genuine article is actually snake oil? 

Maybe I'm being a little cynical here, but if Tescos is not above selling horsemeat, labeled as finest beef, and HP inks and high end perfumes are routinely fakes, how do we know that the squeak in the machine is not  being taken care of with Johnson's baby oil.

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a chemical engineer could compare a list of watch oils (breaking into secret formulas) via gas chronograph.   illegal.   in the US,  he would be strung up  by Shell Oil Co.  all i know about watch oils is:  originally Whale oil.   then mineral oil  and last deturgent oil (the best).  cheers.  vin

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1 hour ago, vinn3 said:

a chemical engineer could compare a list of watch oils (breaking into secret formulas) via gas chronograph.   illegal.   in the US,  he would be strung up  by Shell Oil Co.  all i know about watch oils is:  originally Whale oil.   then mineral oil  and last deturgent oil (the best).  cheers.  vin

I'll let ye know next time I'm at the GC-MS B)

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2 minutes ago, vinn3 said:

   gc-ms -- ?

A gas chromatograph (GC) paired with a mass spectrometer (MS) detector, very sensitive detector which ionizes and then identifies the analyte coming from the GC. Can give an identification as to the identity of each of the compounds you manage to resolve from your sample using the GC.

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On 9/1/2019 at 6:27 PM, AndyHull said:

That is true, but how do you know when you pays that price, that you are always getting what you are paying for?


I'm not sure there is much of a market for fake Moebius, but by the same token, how would we know if it is watch oil or snake oil, or indeed if the genuine article is actually snake oil? 

Maybe I'm being a little cynical here, but if Tescos is not above selling horsemeat, labeled as finest beef, and HP inks and high end perfumes are routinely fakes, how do we know that the squeak in the machine is not  being taken care of with Johnson's baby oil.

JBO is made from a 'white mineral oil' which is highly refined mineral oil with the nasties removed, often referred to as 'liquid paraffin'.  Medicinal  are highest spec and are used for medicinal applications such as JBO, technical grades are used for lubing machinery where the odd drop may get into the product. Some watch oils are made using this type of oil with medicinal/technical quality additives to enhance properties.  These oils are clear and very stable, and lie somewhere between ordinary mineral oils and synthetic oils.  They are lower cost than synthetics but more expensive than normal mineral oils.  JBO probably has some perfume and lanolin type additives which are safe for human contact (medicinal quality).  It is possible to deduce what additives are added to oils by studying the safety data sheets and product specifications which are readily available BUT you still have to 'make the cake' !!!!

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40 minutes ago, canthus said:

JBO is made from a 'white mineral oil' which is highly refined mineral oil with the nasties removed, often referred to as 'liquid paraffin'.  Medicinal  are highest spec and are used for medicinal applications such as JBO, technical grades are used for lubing machinery where the odd drop may get into the product. Some watch oils are made using this type of oil with medicinal/technical quality additives to enhance properties.  These oils are clear and very stable, and lie somewhere between ordinary mineral oils and synthetic oils.  They are lower cost than synthetics but more expensive than normal mineral oils.  JBO probably has some perfume and lanolin type additives which are safe for human contact (medicinal quality).  It is possible to deduce what additives are added to oils by studying the safety data sheets and product specifications which are readily available BUT you still have to 'make the cake' !!!!

I guess the issue with using JBO would be the perfumes etc. in the cake, so to speak. 

Although they might be arguably less obnoxious than WD40, they are not, I suspect, designed for lubricating metals.

I do have a couple of Timexes and a couple of Sekondas that I could conduct this particular experiment with, purely for the entertainment value of course. Although I don't have any genuine Johnsons baby oil,  I actually have a large bottle of off supermarket brand "fragrance fee, non allergenic"  baby oil, which I use on crystals to give an extra bit of sparkle (an old photography trick). I suspect, based on your statement above, that it is probably therefore simply highly refined paraffin oil with no additives. 

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1 hour ago, vinn3 said:

well, ;  you are now offically the forums "master chemist"..  i ran a Klet when the GC came in.  it was too complicat for me,  much like the internet.   cheers,  vin

Thanks :)I'm an Analytical Chemist by trade, I think there some more Chemists on the forum too.

I've worked in forensics lab/identifying unknown materials before, was a lot of fun. Wish I had a lab of my own for questions like this

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Could well be the case.  Watch oils normally also need certain additives such as anti-wear, anti-oxidant, even extreme pressure, and sometimes metal pacifiers (anti corrosion/staining).  Also baby oils tend to be quite high viscosity so would not be suitable for  balance etc which requires a relatively thin oil for minimum friction in the oil.  Thinner are available but maybe not readily in small quantities.  Simple way of comparing with a known oil is let the oils equalise for temperature then put a drop of each on a flat clean glass slide then tip it up to about 45-60 deg and see which oil wins the race to the bottom.  The thinner oil will win!   The first thing to select when choosing an oil is the correct viscosity for the application then decide if any additional properties are needed via additives.  Generally slow moving means thick (high viscosity) and fast moving means thin (low viscosity).

WD40 is designed to Displace Water and leave waxy type protective film to prevent further water ingress.  NOT what is wanted in a watch lubricant!

 

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