Help please with this oiler

[davidsuffolkParticipant @davidsuffolk]

My lathe has a number of these oil or grease points and I'm struggling to use them. They look (and probably are) simple enough but even though I have a grease gun with an end that appears to fit into the cup all that happens is the grease pressure pushes the gun away with none going into the machine. If they are intended just for oil rather than grease is there a oil gun with an appropriate end easily available?

Expert opinion sought! The cup is 8mm diameter and I expect someone will immediately say " oh that is an XXX and very common" !

[davidsuffolkParticipant @davidsuffolk]

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

.

Here is the new friend you seek.

**LINK**

Nick

[MichaelRParticipant @michaelr]

As Nick has shown that's what's needed, just push the ball down with the oil can spout nozzle and squirt away.

Mike.

[davidsuffolkParticipant @davidsuffolk]

Perhaps I should have explained myself more clearly. The oiler on the slide isn't my problem but was easier to take a picture of (and I had worked out how to hold the ball down and oil with a can though that is a very slow method)

What I cannot do is oil the inaccessible ones especially like in this picture (in the centre of the shaft if not clear).

Being horizontal holding the ball down and squirting it tends to just drip down so are there any oil guns that can both depress the ball and squirt with a bit of pressure?

I suppose I can hold down with a small pointed item and use a can of WD40 or similar but I hoped there might be a proper solution.

Edited By davidsuffolk on 22/06/2015 12:39:06

[Brian WoodParticipant @brianwood45127]

Hello David,

A little tip to prevent sideways leakage, pump the oil through a piece of thin rag pushed into tight contact between the gun nipple and oiler, it stops a lot of mess. Don't use grease, these are oilers.

Regards

Brian

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by Brian Wood on 22/06/2015 12:41:49:

. Don't use grease,

.

And don't use WD40 like you mentioned.

WD is nothing more than a solvent to grease and oil. i.e. it will wash away the any existing there is.

I know the marketing guy's at WD 'say' it's a lubricant but it's not. The original designation of WD stood for 'Water Dispersant .'

IMHO WD40 is a product of the Devil.

Nick

[Gordon WParticipant @gordonw]

I love WD40, I luckily bought 5 litres just before the w/shop roof blew off, none left but did the job. What David needs is an oilcan with a rigid spout and a small domed end. Just push into the oiler and squirt. Some will be lost but most goes where it should.

[davidsuffolkParticipant @davidsuffolk]

Guess Austrian springs are stronger than Chinese ones! I have a rigid spout oil can (and now a very sore thumb) but "some" oil has gone in I think (though I got a lot of spurting out the side).

Because I had failed before I presumed there had to be a special tip for an oil gun but from what has been said it seems pure brute force works well.

Thanks to all for the help

[martyn nutlandParticipant @martynnutland79495]

Just as a silly little aside, David, I have the rather pretty little oilers you describe on my lathe and 'mill' and I use the oil can that came in the tool kit of my great uncle George's World War l era Sunbeam motor cycle.

It's all that remains of the machine, but has found a new life 100 years on in my workshop and it does work a treat!

Good luck.

Martyn

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

The one on the changewheel stud (and lots of other places, look like grease nipples) is meant to be attacked with the infamous Myford oil gun. A lot like a grease gun but squirts oil. I've got a good one made by Wanner, but there are lots of bad ones around

[RobboParticipant @robbo]

One of these would probably do your horizontal nipples (note pointy end) **LINK**

The pointy end depresses the ball and you get a pressurised flow.

My favourite of this type is all metal, but can't find one at present on ebay.

[Alan RawlinsParticipant @alanrawlins60482]

My oil can is just like a conventional oil can but the spout is flexible so you can get into awkward places. A company called Sam Turners and sons of Northallerton sells them and I believe they do Mail order too. they are about 35.00ish if i remember correctly.

[Alan RawlinsParticipant @alanrawlins60482]

Hi, here you go http://www.sam-turner.co.uk/tools/catalogsearch/result/?q=oil+cans You have a choice now.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

When I had a Myford, I found that the Myford gun supplied a lot of oil, all over the machine, including me, except where it should go.

A Reilang oil gun , fairly expensive, but it puts the oil through the ball oilers with minimal loss; and can generate quite a bit of pressure. Have never regretted buying it.

My BL12/24 (WArco BH600/Chester Craftsman lookalike) had an oiler for the power feed control that was inaccessible, right beneath the cross slide handwheel. In great trepidation, stripped off the control, removed the ball oiler (destroyed it in the process), plugged the original hole, and drilled another 6mm hole where it would be accessible, fitted a new ball oiler, and then reassembled.

For normal hydraulic grease nipples, i use an old CHEAP side lever grease gun with a flexible extension.

For Changewheels, I smear grease over as much as posible and rely on rotation to spread it to the other teeth.

Or one of the aerosol cans of chain/gear lubricant is even better.

Howard

[HopperParticipant @hopper]

ISTR one of the books by GHT or LH Sparey etc suggesting taking a mini-hacksaw and putting a small cut across the end of the pointed oil can nozzle. The pointed nozzle pushes the ball inwards and oil is able to come out the two slots formed by the hacksaw cut.

[PeteParticipant @pete41194]

Almost "NO" machine tools will ever use grease at any point. There are of course a very rare few that do. But you'd certainly do far less permanent damage to any machine tool by using oil in place of the grease. Going the other way and using grease in place of the proper and recommended oil will accelerate wear at all points at least 10 times more than that proper lubrication would. And being really stupid and pumping grease into something like a Bridgeport's head because some do have a grease zerk on the side of the head can literally cost you thousands in replacement parts and even just to clean all that grease out so you can then use the correct high speed spindle oil.  

Exactly why do far too many hobbiest's insist on using oil and even far worse that grease lubrication that's 100% completely wrong for there machine tools? Yes any oil is better than no oil, but the correct and especially that correct way oil is far better than any other oil at all, and most definitely any automotive or even worse the high detergent motor or transmission oils.  We all, or at least most of us have to scrimp and save just to buy our machines and tooling, and the total spent can be very high. The proper way oil or spindle oil is literally only a few pennies per use, yet some insist on using some of the worst possible ideas for lubrication just to pinch a very few of those pennies, and they then greatly accelerate the wear on a comparably expensive machine tool. Proper way oil DOES make a noticeable difference to the way your machine operates, feels, and even just how well or tightly you can adjust it's gibs, yet it still allows a smooth movement. No properly run commercial machine shop would ever use anything but the correct and recommended lubrication because they've learned that the incorrect lube just isn't cost effective. And some of what's used by hobbiest's that think there far smarter than the lubrication engineer's or machine tool manufacturers is most likely far more expensive by volume than the correct lubrication would be. In small quantity's that WD-40 certainly is.

Anybody here think this isn't a very expensive hobby at any level and size of equipment? It is if that's somehow news to you I'm sorry to say, and doing things correctly  including that proper and specific lubrication is just a very small part of the total cost's involved  in this hobby.

I learned very expensively just how little I knew about machine tool lubrication when I mistakenly thought a heavy duty hypoid 90 weight gear oil would last and work much better than the light weight factory oil recommendation would do. Because of the oil drying out and a collection of wear particles that weren't being flushed out of the power feed assembly with that light oil, it then created enough drag and burned up a $800 Emco motor on my lathe. Today I use exactly what the factory recommends and have never had another problem. I'd hate to see anyone here relearning the same very costly mistake I did.

Pete 

Edited By Pete on 27/06/2015 01:08:42

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