Page 1 of 1

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 6:47 pm
by cjk
Have you tried using some combination of singer sewing machine oil or motor oil and ultrapure unscented lamp oil?

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 8:33 pm
by cjk
maybe check this thread? :oops:

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=39459&p=344749&hili ... se#p344749" target="_blank

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 2:28 am
by Chen
Can't beat Hetman for oil.

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 9:56 am
by iiipopes
Chen wrote:Can't beat Hetman for oil.
With due respect, I completely disagree. Hetman is overpriced, underperforms, gunks up, and unless your saliva is compatible, you will be cleaning gunk forever. And it only works without negative interaction with other Hetman products, meaning if you find something that works better for you on one aspect of a rotary horn, you can't necessarily use Hetmans for the others.

Now, a rotor instrument ideally needs five lubricants: 1) a thick slide grease for the slides that are set, like the main tuning slide; 2) a light slide grease, like Ultrapure Light, for the slides you "ride throttle," like #1 for ease of movement and to keep the grease from gunking up the rotors; 3) a standard valve oil for occasionally applying directly to the rotors from inside the valve tubes to establish "seal" if it's been awhile since it's been played, or to flush gunk; 4) a light oil, like sewing machine oil, for the rotor bearings top and bottom; and 5) a linkage oil, which can be anything from 3-N-1 if they aren't that noisy to 30W for real clankers.

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 1:43 pm
by SousaSaver
You can use 3n1 oil on the linkages. I like to use Paxman bearing oil on the bearings.

Wear is the play in your rotor? Side to side? Up and down when pulling on the stop arm? Depending on the situation, it might be possible to swedge the bearings to eliminate play in the rotor and help your noise problem. If the surface of the valve is worn out, this might not help but it could be worth a shot.

Bloke - Do you think that swedging could help?

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Sat Sep 18, 2010 9:27 pm
by SousaSaver
Agreed Bloke. I was a bit confused from your first description. It's clear now.

Re: What are the best lubricants for old rotors

Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 9:09 am
by bigbob
What about Blue Juice?? I just bought a big bottle of the stuff 8oz's Is it about the best for a valve horn?? thanks IIIpopes for answering most of my questions...........BB