Oils to start my kit with ....advice appreciated

[bj501]

 

Just getting my initial kit together and now up to the lubricating items.

I would like to know which ones are essential to start with and where i could get them at a reasonable price.

I was told these but would like some old timers advice;

8200

9415 grease

Moebius 

 

I appreciate all the help

 

Jeff

 

[Mark]

We have a PDF here for getting started lubricants… 

 

[VWatchie]

11 hours ago, bj501 said:

 

Just getting my initial kit together and now up to the lubricating items.

I would like to know which ones are essential to start with and where i could get them at a reasonable price.

I was told these but would like some old timers advice;

8200

9415 grease

Moebius 

 

I appreciate all the help

 

Jeff

 

The PDF Mark linked to is excellent. Worth noticing perhaps is that for most (all?) of their movements, ETA has now replaced D5 with HP-1300. Not sure if that's a better oil, but at least you can get a 2mm bottle for £17.55 (CousinsUK) rather than a 20ml bottle of D5 for £26.95. 2ml will last for years and years unless you're a pro. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Neverenoughwatches]

4 hours ago, VWatchie said:

The PDF Mark linked to is excellent. Worth noticing perhaps is that for most (all?) of their movements, ETA has now replaced D5 with HP-1300. Not sure if that's a better oil, but at least you can get a 2mm bottle for £17.55 (CousinsUK) rather than a 20ml bottle of D5 for £26.95. 2ml will last for years and years unless you're a pro. Just thought I'd mention it.

 

[haratua]

When it comes to D5 vs HP-13000, I'd say get HP1300 rather than D5. Synthetic oil has a shelf life of 5-6 years as opposed to 3 years.

If you're working on automatic watch, you will also need these:

- Moebius 8217 braking grease for the mainspring barrel wall.

- Lubeta for the automatic reversing wheels (though this is more of a luxury as it's not cheap). Some people just make their own mixture of 9010 + naphta/benzine/shellite (3-5% of Moebius 9010) 

[JohnR725]

6 hours ago, haratua said:

When it comes to D5 vs HP-13000, I'd say get HP1300 rather than D5. Synthetic oil has a shelf life of 5-6 years as opposed to 3 years.

have you ever looked at the lubrication chart found that the link below? as a rather interesting line on the bottom of the chart where it makes a reference to which of those oils you should be using and where. it just a peculiar line of sometimes use one and sometimes use the other. 

https://www.moebius-lubricants.ch/en/products/oils

 

[VWatchie]

9 hours ago, haratua said:

- Moebius 8217 braking grease for the mainspring barrel wall.

Speaking of braking grease. I believe I got the following from @nickelsilver a few years ago.

"Moebius 8217 is the standard grease
Kluber P125 is also a standard if a bit more high-tech grease. Then there is
Moebius 8212, also known as Glissalube B, for aluminum barrels, and
Moebius 8213, Glissalube A, for brass barrels. Easy to remember as the letter code matches the opposite metal."

[Endeavor]

10 hours ago, haratua said:

Synthetic oil has a shelf life of 5-6 years as opposed to 3 years.

Perhaps some food for thought; Assume the shelf life of an oil runs out in a month. The service interval of the watch on hand is 5 or 10 years, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply. What to do?

Same question; the shelf life runs out over 6 months, or over a year, or even two years, and the service interval of the watch is 5 or 10 years, again, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply ??

Edited May 5, 2023 by Endeavor

[VWatchie]

14 minutes ago, Endeavor said:

Perhaps some food for thought; Assume the shelf life of an oil runs out in a month. The service interval of the watch on hand is 5 or 10 years, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply. What to do?

Same question; the shelf life runs out over 6 months, or over a year, or even two years, and the service interval of the watch is 5 or 10 years, again, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply ??

I wouldn't worry about that, but it's an interesting question. I would assume that as long as the oil is applied before the shelf life ends it shouldn't be any problem. I keep my oils in a cool and dark place and would expect them to work perfectly many years after the shelf life.

[Neverenoughwatches]

27 minutes ago, Endeavor said:

Perhaps some food for thought; Assume the shelf life of an oil runs out in a month. The service interval of the watch on hand is 5 or 10 years, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply. What to do?

Same question; the shelf life runs out over 6 months, or over a year, or even two years, and the service interval of the watch is 5 or 10 years, again, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply ??

This same question has cropped up many times in the last year, in terms of synthetic oils what does the lubrication expiration date mean ? Mostly all it actually means is that watch lubrication manufacturers like mobius sell more watch lubrication. I would say hardly any of us here worry about it. I received an unopened 5ml bottle of 9010 in a job lot of tools, the container looks much older than a new container. Will i use it ? you betcha bottom dollar i will

[Endeavor]

My question was posted just to make you think about the commercial BS there is in "shelf-life"

 

Edited May 5, 2023 by Endeavor

[Neverenoughwatches]

33 minutes ago, Endeavor said:

My question was posted just to make you think about the commercial BS there is in "shelf-life"

 

As a rough guesstimate enough BS to cover a small country.

[RichardHarris123]

Maybe that's why some YouTubers use plenty of oil, it's nearly at it's use by date, so let's bang it on. Hehe. 

[Neverenoughwatches]

11 minutes ago, RichardHarris123 said:

so let's bang it on. Hehe. 

Richard I think you're just getting carried away now with my actress and bishop pun.

[JohnR725]

5 hours ago, Endeavor said:

Perhaps some food for thought; Assume the shelf life of an oil runs out in a month. The service interval of the watch on hand is 5 or 10 years, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply. What to do?

Same question; the shelf life runs out over 6 months, or over a year, or even two years, and the service interval of the watch is 5 or 10 years, again, well past the shelf-life of the oil you like to apply ??

at one time horological lubrication did not have dates on the packaging like the bottle. That means you can buy oil on eBay a partially open bottle and safely use it because it has no expiring date. then if it was a natural oil you could ascertain its condition as to whether the oil was still fluid in the bottle as long as it was fluid you'd be okay. Synthetic oil tends to last forever so nothing to worry about here.

A long time ago was on another horological discussion group. Somebody was talking about how they use D5 in their clock repair. There are using one bottle a month basically and a whole batch of clocks came back because of a lubrication issue. All traced to one bottle of D5. 

So one of the concerns was like the above example what if the oil from material houses not fresh. There is no way of telling whether a bottle has been sitting in the back shelf of the storage room for the last 20 years versus it was a brand-new bottle just got it yesterday. If you using lubrication with organic components which tend to go bad much faster you can have an issue like this but how much of an issue is it really if the entire months worth of clocks come back with angry consumers because your oil went bad for unknown reasons because there's no dates. fortunately for hobbyists you don't care about stuff like that but if you taking money from customers and you have a problem because of lubrication it's going to be an issue for you. On the other hand the good news for watch repair bad lubrication issues might not show up for five years in your customer will hopefully be long gone.

and what about synthetic oil it's mostly good forever. That might explain why I purchased two bottles of Elgin oil off of eBay about a month ago. Synthetic oil that hasn't been made since the 60s but still highly regarded as a better product than what the Swiss currently make. Fortunately there is no expiring date so I don't have to worry about it. Although I am concerned about the choice of putting it in little squeeze bottles wondering if the plastic might disintegrate after all this time and contaminate my oil.

oh and thinking of contamination that's another concern that companies have. Like how does the oil come out of the bottle sticking stuff into the bottle could contaminate the oil. Or the oil in your oil cups you ever change that? My favorite was somebody who was inspecting watch shops that they would send their work to and if you want to get this guy really excited don't put the oil cups bids down and maybe toss a dust bunny in. Because of course the stuff in the air falling out of the air into the oil can make an interesting grinding compound depending upon how much dust is in your shop. Which is why usually polishing should be done safely away from the open bottle of lubrication.

4 hours ago, RichardHarris123 said:

Maybe that's why some YouTubers use plenty of oil,

what's the definition of plenty of oil? We end up with interesting problems in horology like it spans a very huge time.. That means our service literature art books the rules which we try to follow or not span a very long time and they change with time.

for instance when I was in school the rule of lubrication was basically if you couldn't see that you lubricated that would be fine in other words Larry action holds oil in place and you should barely see it at all around your pivots. Except now we have Omega Rolex where their current role a thought is the previous rule is not enough oil at all. As long as you can see the top of your pivots you can flood oil all around it and that's considered acceptable. Whereas in school that would get your watch in the sawdust bin.

I think some of what you're seeing is now the watch companies have taken away all the bad people servicing their watch which would be all of us. There are discovering that the rules were exactly right. Super minimalistic oil quantities conceivably will go away with time pivots will get ground that requires replacement of parts. Oh and that's a minor concern I have with watch companies recommending 10 years service intervals they also know that they're going to replace parts because they have them. So on a change we see is when the watch companies start to see what's really going on versus the perception of how stupid the watchmakers are.

then probably the easiest way to deal with this would be to keep a Journal of your work. You get a watch you write down what you thought was wrong with it what you actually fixed in a notes timekeeping amplitude which is extremely important for this group who cares about timekeeping. Then time to time look at the watch put it back on the timing machine is it keeping the amplitude you perceive. Anything really weird with lubrication is now show up there. Well sort of? If you have a lot of metal on metal bearings in your lubrication goes away you might not see a decrease in amplitude until the pivots of ground themselves to dust like this happened with a lot of early automatic watches with metal on metal bearings lubrication disintegrated a happy customer or over the watch ran it for all those years not paying the greedy watchmaker and discovered that oh dear servicing is now expensive because their pivots are gone. Which is aided by the fact that watches that don't get serviced still have the original gaskets that are probably disintegrated moisture gets in another thought of why servicing should be done more often as to maintain the gaskets.

So how about a different thought the other day somebody pointed out most of the people on this group is or are amateur and hobbyist. Basically implying that you don't have to follow the rules you can do whatever you feel like. So maybe a different lubrication recommendation I have two links you should bill a purchase this lubrication anywhere on the planet. The reason why there's two legs the first one I found is the best price but the second link looks just like the bottle I have it work. So John is a bottle at work but not to say why have a network but a case because it's at work it must be a good lubrication it's inexpensive it doesn't come from the greedy Swiss it doesn't have an expiring date and because everyone in the group is either a amateur and hobbyist it should be perfect for you.

then yes I really do have a bottle at work and I was disappointed with it.. Then a course my test got interrupted because somebody at work took my watch and decided to use it as a practice watch which disrupted what was going on with it and that I got out of its container and got dust all over which didn't help at all. So much for controlled experiment but I was still disappointed because at the time I purchased it did have a reputation for doing something which it didn't do. But as were not concerned about anything other than cost expiring date and the cost is good and there's no expiring date then it should be an outstanding lubrication for you. Oh and just a reminder one of the times that Mark revised the rules of the message board I think he put a thing in where if you follow the advice and it doesn't turn out the way you think it's basically your fault. For some unknown reason I just thought I'd point that out I'm sure it doesn't relate to the quality of this product at all.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354699906622

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333318038741

 

 

 

 

[Neverenoughwatches]

58 minutes ago, JohnR725 said:

at one time horological lubrication did not have dates on the packaging like the bottle. That means you can buy oil on eBay a partially open bottle and safely use it because it has no expiring date. then if it was a natural oil you could ascertain its condition as to whether the oil was still fluid in the bottle as long as it was fluid you'd be okay. Synthetic oil tends to last forever so nothing to worry about here.

A long time ago was on another horological discussion group. Somebody was talking about how they use D5 in their clock repair. There are using one bottle a month basically and a whole batch of clocks came back because of a lubrication issue. All traced to one bottle of D5. 

So one of the concerns was like the above example what if the oil from material houses not fresh. There is no way of telling whether a bottle has been sitting in the back shelf of the storage room for the last 20 years versus it was a brand-new bottle just got it yesterday. If you using lubrication with organic components which tend to go bad much faster you can have an issue like this but how much of an issue is it really if the entire months worth of clocks come back with angry consumers because your oil went bad for unknown reasons because there's no dates. fortunately for hobbyists you don't care about stuff like that but if you taking money from customers and you have a problem because of lubrication it's going to be an issue for you. On the other hand the good news for watch repair bad lubrication issues might not show up for five years in your customer will hopefully be long gone.

and what about synthetic oil it's mostly good forever. That might explain why I purchased two bottles of Elgin oil off of eBay about a month ago. Synthetic oil that hasn't been made since the 60s but still highly regarded as a better product than what the Swiss currently make. Fortunately there is no expiring date so I don't have to worry about it. Although I am concerned about the choice of putting it in little squeeze bottles wondering if the plastic might disintegrate after all this time and contaminate my oil.

oh and thinking of contamination that's another concern that companies have. Like how does the oil come out of the bottle sticking stuff into the bottle could contaminate the oil. Or the oil in your oil cups you ever change that? My favorite was somebody who was inspecting watch shops that they would send their work to and if you want to get this guy really excited don't put the oil cups bids down and maybe toss a dust bunny in. Because of course the stuff in the air falling out of the air into the oil can make an interesting grinding compound depending upon how much dust is in your shop. Which is why usually polishing should be done safely away from the open bottle of lubrication.

what's the definition of plenty of oil? We end up with interesting problems in horology like it spans a very huge time.. That means our service literature art books the rules which we try to follow or not span a very long time and they change with time.

for instance when I was in school the rule of lubrication was basically if you couldn't see that you lubricated that would be fine in other words Larry action holds oil in place and you should barely see it at all around your pivots. Except now we have Omega Rolex where their current role a thought is the previous rule is not enough oil at all. As long as you can see the top of your pivots you can flood oil all around it and that's considered acceptable. Whereas in school that would get your watch in the sawdust bin.

I think some of what you're seeing is now the watch companies have taken away all the bad people servicing their watch which would be all of us. There are discovering that the rules were exactly right. Super minimalistic oil quantities conceivably will go away with time pivots will get ground that requires replacement of parts. Oh and that's a minor concern I have with watch companies recommending 10 years service intervals they also know that they're going to replace parts because they have them. So on a change we see is when the watch companies start to see what's really going on versus the perception of how stupid the watchmakers are.

then probably the easiest way to deal with this would be to keep a Journal of your work. You get a watch you write down what you thought was wrong with it what you actually fixed in a notes timekeeping amplitude which is extremely important for this group who cares about timekeeping. Then time to time look at the watch put it back on the timing machine is it keeping the amplitude you perceive. Anything really weird with lubrication is now show up there. Well sort of? If you have a lot of metal on metal bearings in your lubrication goes away you might not see a decrease in amplitude until the pivots of ground themselves to dust like this happened with a lot of early automatic watches with metal on metal bearings lubrication disintegrated a happy customer or over the watch ran it for all those years not paying the greedy watchmaker and discovered that oh dear servicing is now expensive because their pivots are gone. Which is aided by the fact that watches that don't get serviced still have the original gaskets that are probably disintegrated moisture gets in another thought of why servicing should be done more often as to maintain the gaskets.

So how about a different thought the other day somebody pointed out most of the people on this group is or are amateur and hobbyist. Basically implying that you don't have to follow the rules you can do whatever you feel like. So maybe a different lubrication recommendation I have two links you should bill a purchase this lubrication anywhere on the planet. The reason why there's two legs the first one I found is the best price but the second link looks just like the bottle I have it work. So John is a bottle at work but not to say why have a network but a case because it's at work it must be a good lubrication it's inexpensive it doesn't come from the greedy Swiss it doesn't have an expiring date and because everyone in the group is either a amateur and hobbyist it should be perfect for you.

then yes I really do have a bottle at work and I was disappointed with it.. Then a course my test got interrupted because somebody at work took my watch and decided to use it as a practice watch which disrupted what was going on with it and that I got out of its container and got dust all over which didn't help at all. So much for controlled experiment but I was still disappointed because at the time I purchased it did have a reputation for doing something which it didn't do. But as were not concerned about anything other than cost expiring date and the cost is good and there's no expiring date then it should be an outstanding lubrication for you. Oh and just a reminder one of the times that Mark revised the rules of the message board I think he put a thing in where if you follow the advice and it doesn't turn out the way you think it's basically your fault. For some unknown reason I just thought I'd point that out I'm sure it doesn't relate to the quality of this product at all.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/354699906622

https://www.ebay.com/itm/333318038741

 

 

 

 

I thought this brand of oil was banned from being mentioned on the forum. It was the first watch oil i used. On four  restoration watches, within a couple  months the oil was more gummy than a gummy bear  

[LittleWatchShop]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

That might explain why I purchased two bottles of Elgin oil off of eBay about a month ago.

You da man!

[Endeavor]

When I started, I thought Moebius oils were way too expensive and I still do think so.

Having worked in and a lot with Germans, I know their work ethics; "Deutsche Gründlichkeit" and started looking into German watch-oils. Germany used to have an excellent, high standard Swiss compatible watch-industry until in 1945 (Februari 23rd) when Pfrozheim, in one of the largest (retaliation?) carpet-bombardment of WW2, was wiped out.

Despite this, you can find very high quality stuff in Germany, also in watch-oils and this without paying the Swiss cartel prices.

I've been using the German Dr.Tillwich synthetic watch oils ever since I started. Bought only once the highly touted Moebius "thixotropic" 9415 grease, but that turned out to be a poor performer compared to my Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewels oil.

Of course, if you are working as a professional, you have to stick to the "industry standard"-oils, even if it was just to cover your *ss.

Edited May 6, 2023 by Endeavor

[haratua]

I’d like to think shelf life to mean exactly that, when it is good to be on the shelf, not after it’s already applied on the watch parts. Since most watches with synthetic oil could last up to 10 years between service, no oil could last that long if you consider shelf-life to include the time after it’s been applied on the watch.

Natural, non-synthetic oil on the other hand, as with most things natural, they will go bad or at least degrade over time. While it may not be exactly 3 years of its suggested shelf life, I wouldn’t be so blatant to say the idea of shelf life on it  BS.

[JohnR725]

21 hours ago, Neverenoughwatches said:

I thought this brand of oil was banned from being mentioned on the forum. It was the first watch oil i used. On four  restoration watches, within a couple  months the oil was more gummy than a gummy bear

this makes me feel sad I got shortchanged with my oil. The reputation of anchor oil is that it gels up. In some discussion groups it basically locks things in place where they don't rotate at all. But my bottle is still the most fluid bottle of oil I've ever seen. The test watch idea it didn't seem to gel up it just seemed to spread all over the place. I was really waiting for gummy oil so I feel deprived that my bottle didn't the form as expected.

9 hours ago, haratua said:

I wouldn’t be so blatant to say the idea of shelf life on it

are you telling me I should be concerned about my Elgin oil that was manufactured in the 60s? On the other hand it doesn't have an expiring date on it so it must be good forever.

 

 

11 hours ago, Endeavor said:

I've been using the German Dr.Tillwich synthetic watch oils ever since I started. Bought only once the highly touted Moebius "thixotropic" 9415 grease, but that turned out to be a poor performer compared to my Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewels oil.

the problem with the 9415 is it has to be applied very very carefully because if you're working with a modern watch and you get it applied to heavily as you've discovered you will lose amplitude. By the way what's the part number for the Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewels oil?

Edited May 6, 2023 by JohnR725

[VWatchie]

11 hours ago, Endeavor said:

Bought only once the highly touted Moebius "thixotropic" 9415 grease, but that turned out to be a poor performer compared to my Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewels oil.

I've used the Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewel oil on several occasions with excellent results! The only time I go for 9415 is when doing high-beat ETA movements (28800 BPH), but I wouldn't be surprised if I would get excellent results with the Dr.Tillwich oil too.

[rossjackson01]

I have Mobeus 2010, D5 and Molykote DX. These are all recommended by Mark and others. £7.95 per bottle from ebay. Purchased 18 month ago. Will probably last my life time judging by the amount I have used to date.

Edited May 6, 2023 by rossjackson01
spelling

[VWatchie]

1 hour ago, JohnR725 said:

what's the part number for the Dr.Tillwich pallet-jewels oil?

Here's a link to the type that I have: Dr. Tillwich Uhrenöl Sorte 1-3 TK2213 für Steinlager Metalllager 3,5ml

[JohnR725]

2 hours ago, VWatchie said:

Dr. Tillwich Uhrenöl Sorte 1-3 TK2213 für Steinlager Metalllager 3,5ml

I thought maybe it was a specific escapement lubrication.  just in case you don't have it I do have the PDF specification.

 

TK2213EN Type 1-3 oil.pdf

[Endeavor]

10 hours ago, JohnR725 said:

the problem with the 9415 is it has to be applied very very carefully because if you're working with a modern watch and you get it applied to heavily as you've discovered you will lose amplitude.

We've been through that. I applied down to microscopic amounts and still got less amplitude.

Of course it's never the (heaven forbid a Moebius!) oil, it's always the operator to blame. Doesn't that excuse sound familiar with things which don't fulfill their promise and you bring it back to a shop? "Surely, you must be doing something wrong ....." or "You are the very first ...."

Let me put it this way; Moebius 9415 doesn't work for me, Dr.Tillwich 1-3 does

 

Edited May 7, 2023 by Endeavor