Post by ChetAnother web group has a pretty active controversy over the legitimate
use of Nano oil in clock repair.
It does appear to have some remarkable abilities to penetrate and
lubricate friction points.
Anybody here familiar with it?
If so, what parts do you use it on and what weight do you prefer?
Nano isn't cheap and comes in a variety of weights...
Opinions are fairly vigorous on the other group, and I thought I might
get a calmer response here.
I have trying it out for the last few months, this is the oil Christan
StClair sells, www.nano-oil.com
cost wise well it is no dearer than 859 oil which costs me $25 for a 4ml
applicator bottle and the 20ml of Moebius D5 that I use for high load
bearings is $40
I use the 10w and the 85w nano oil, the 85w for high load bearings like
barrels arbours, chain wheels and the 8day intermediate wheels, on the
star or pin wheels for the strike and the chime drum, on most sliding
lifting surfaces and the 10w for all other pivots.
used it on carriage clocks to grandfather/longcase clocks, it seems to
do the job, it stays put, doesn't run all over the plates, on a couple
of cylinder platform I seemed to get a better action on the balance.
on a couple of clocks I did 6 months ago the oil is still present and
has not changed colour.
the only real test would be to see these clocks in 5 years and 10 years
time as to whether the oil is still doing it's job.
two clocks I did 3 years or so ago and used the 859 oil in came back,
one was a large seiko instruments table clock, this was not the usual
driving balance type movement they make, this is a high quality fully
jewelled movement with a complicated constant drive motor for the hands
with it's speed controlled by the electronic frequency of the balance
wheel which in turn was checked against a oscillator circuit, this was
pre-quartz and doubt if you would see very many of these outside of Seiko.
the motor had chewed a pivot off, the 859 oil had dried out in the
oversized shock jewel type setting, it was still ok in other parts of
the clock, I repivoted the motor and used some d5 instead.
the other one was a Kienzle 8day wall clock, it's pivot had chewed off
in 3 years, again had used the 859 oil, I repaired the pivot and this
time used the 10w nano-oil, now just have wait and see.
one of the reasons I started using the 859 oil is because the Moebius
clock oils I was using was going green and gummy only after a few years,
859 being a synthetic was a lot more stable.
I now notice on the Ofrei site that these oils 8030, 8040 have a 3year
shelf life, the company used to buy the moebius oils from bought it in
large bottles and repacked it in smaller bottles to sell, I now suspect
their stock was quite old when I bought it.
anyway so far this Nano-oil seems to be doing the job, cannot really
tell what it is like until say 5 years from now when I can pull down and
inspect a clock and see what condition the pivots and holes are in, has
the oil dried up?, pivots scored?, oil changed colour and so on.
the other thing are these guys in for the long run, will their oil
still available in years to come, I also realise that these guys cannot
compare to companies like Moebius who have been making watch and clock
oils for what? 100years
dAz