Which oil to lube paper shredder?

What substitute oil can I use to save me the cost of buying an additional special oil for my Fellowes cross-cut shredder used in my home office?

Shredder manufacturers say to avoid WD40.

It seems some shredder oils are the consistency of a light machine oil which is heavier than I would have predicted.

I wonder if some of the newer lubes (graphite sprays, PTFE, etc) would do a good job? I guess the main requirements are probably

(1) to avoid the oil dripping off the blades soon (2) to have enough lubricant powert os top wear (3) to avoid holding paper dust such that over time it becomes congealed.

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Advice pages on the internet seem confused:

(1) mineral oil.......food grade (2) Mineral oil or sewing machine oil. (3) We use 5W30 motor oil ours and it has been working fine for a year and a half. (4) use mineral oil. if you use any type of pertroleum based oil it will get on the paper you are shredding, and in turn get into the land fill. i know you are saying it is such a small amount, but how many shreders are out there??? imagine if everyone used regular oil in their shreders.... imagine the amount of oil that would go into the land fill, and then into the water table. (5) They are all lubricants. Any oil is fine, WD-40 or whatever you have. (6) A very light weight oil. sewing machine oil should do it.

[AFAIK mineral oil is a petroleoum oil]

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I have tended to use a silicone spray lubricant or a silicon + PTFE spray like these. However but they do not seem to provide enough lube to prevent cuttings staying on the shredder blade (and I am not applying so much lube thatthe cuttings stick to the blade).

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Reply to
Alan
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Good idea - it is not a lubricant.

Geo

Reply to
Geo

and it's really good for washing old lubricants off (e.g. prior to replacing them).

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

WD40 is not a general purpose lubricant. It is a penetrating oil. Its designed purpose is to ooze into cracks between pieces of metal that have been frozen together by rust/pressure/etc. and provide enough lubrication to allow them to be separated. The secret of WD40 is in the *volatile* components, which give it a low surface energy (google "angle of repose") so that it spreads out on the metal surface and displaces absorbed water (which leads to oxidation of the metal - rust).

You want a lubricant that is non-volatile, even at operating temperatures. As a GP lubricant my lab used motor oil (SAE 50 or less) for most applications. In sensitive applications where microliter amounts were needed, but excess would cause contamination problems, we applied it with an insulin syringe.

The heat of normal operation will reduce the viscosity of the oil somewhat.

Dry lubricants can be very useful. We used Dow-Corning's Moly-Kote (molybdenum disulfide base) for anything requiring high temperature stability, low vapor pressure, or where servicing down-time is expensive. Downside is that the aerosol cans are messy to use: if delicate application was required we sprayed a small amount into a small container and then painted/daubed the Moly-Kote where needed.

Correct. Petroleum oil is simply an unspecified mixture of hydrocarbons with a known boiling range: As a rough guide:

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I have tended to use a silicone spray lubricant or a silicon + PTFE spray

shredder are ideal for the old static electricity experiment of running a plastic comb through someone's hair and holding it over the shredded paper.

Look to electrically grounding the moving parts.

Tom Davidson Richmond, VA

Reply to
tadchem

blade).

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Or run the shredder in the bathroom. I don't think I'd use mineral oil; after a while it would become gunk and have to be cleaned.

/BAH

Reply to
jmfbahciv

Here is the real trick,

Buy a sub at your local sub shop and tell them extra olive oil. (Ham and Cheese and all your fave other toppings.) but with extra olive oil.

The sub shop usually uses a slightly waxed paper and the oil actually soaks into it a bit. Before you shread anything that day, eat the sub and get rid of all the food and any "massive drippings of the oil". Then shred the paper sub wrapping, and start shredding your other stuff.

I never used any other oil ever and usually only got an extra olive oil sub every third day or so. The wax and oil will keep those blades like day one for many shreds. :)

Reply to
Spaceman

But your guts will end up like the black hole of Calcutta. 8-((

Derek

Reply to
Derek Geldard

But olive oil is good for you, It oils your insides! :)

But if you don't wish to eat all that, you can always buy some wax paper and a bottle of olive oil. (not cheap but lasts a long time if you are only putting a few drops on a piece of paper every week or so. :)

I will admit though.. I don't know if it was the wax paper or the olive oil that did the trick for that shredder. I think it liked both though. :)

Reply to
Spaceman

Why do the makers describe it as "The world's number one multi-purpose lubricant" then?

Reply to
The Medway Handyman

not sure but a company I worked for banned its use as it caused more problems than it fixed, and it became a disciplinary offence if you were caught using it, and we were then issued with a normal oil can, I did read on the web under certain conditions it will corrode metal(which might be a myth)

Reply to
Kevin

Marketing.

Reply to
Bob Eager

| >> Shredder manufacturers say to avoid WD40. | >

| > WD40 is not a general purpose lubricant. | | Why do the makers describe it as "The world's number one multi-purpose | lubricant" then?

If that were true it would be used on condoms, the number one multi-purpose buy me and stop one contraceptive.

Reply to
Androcles

Number 3 is pretty important. The combination of lubricant and paper dust is very abrasive to machinery. This was a big problem during the days of punched cards.

Note the difference between grease and oil. Generally speaking, places that need grease should never be oiled and places that need oil should never be greased. Grease acts like a solvent for oil.

Rather than trying to re-engineer the lubrication system, I'd stick as closely to the manufacturer's design as possible, because there might have been engineering considerations you're not aware of. For example, what if the machine catches fire? A PTFE-based lubricant would emit toxic gases. A silicone oil might spread into the motor or switch contact points, causing an open circuit. If a light machine oil is the closest substitute, that seems like a safe bet. My mom uses 3-in-1 oil on her sewing machine. I don't know if that brand is available in the UK, but from your description of the problem, that seems like a good fit.

Reply to
Mark Thorson

1) Clean it out, hit it with a teflon spray lube, Run empty for a few seconds, let dry. Or, 1a) Take out the cutter, ion plate with titanium nitride, reinstall. Or, 1c) Take out the cutter, microwave CVD with titanium diboride, reinstall.

That last will shred scrap iron.

Reply to
Uncle Al

I just use the real shredder oil - it's much cheaper than a new shredder.

I did find that congealed paper dust caused a problem once, after about

3-4 years' use. It caused the paper sensor on the input slot to jam so that the motor ran all the time. A strip down and clean took just a few minutes.
Reply to
Bob Eager

Absolutely. As someone noted above, WD40 is NOT a "lubricant". It is a penetrating substance designed to loosen rusted fasteners and the like. They market it as something you can spray on to "protect" metal objects, but that is just hype. Truth is that the stories about WD40 rusting metal are NOT myth! IT DOES do that! And anyone using it on a shredder to "protect" the metal from corrosion needs to be paying the office fines! WD40 is good stuff for what it does. If you are taking an old muffler off a car it can't be beat. But beware the "metal protection" nonsense. It has the OPPOSITE effect!

As for oiling a shredder or any other thing you might be temped to use WD40 on, I'd recommend good old 10W-30 Motor oil it usually does a great job both protecting metal from rust and lubricating. Wax is OK, (from wax paper) but tends to be thick and not get into all the right places. However it does have an advantage that the wax lubricates without getting all sticky and having dirt and abrasive paper powder mix with it. Olive oil, I'd suspect is not the best lubricant. I'd say if you think motor oil is too heavy then the next choice would be sewing machine oil.

=2E..or you could just feed the whole sub into the shredder paper and all...

Reply to
Benj

Plusgas is a much better penetrating, nut/bolt freeing product. Remember what the the WD stands for "water displacer", it's good at that but for lubrication or nut freeing there are much better products about.

Thats probably the best thing to do, save you having to eat the ghastly thing.

Reply to
Dave Liquorice

The best stuff around for penetrating used to be Zep 45 but I think it was renamed to Zep Twister. They also have a soy based stuff but I never used it. They really know chemicals.

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Reply to
Spaceman

In message , Alan writes

I've got a Fellowes cross cut under the desk in front of me. It is the only one I've ever bothered to lube and it seems to have surpassed the 2 other (never lubed) ones before it.

Certainly hasn't broken it anyway.

Hth

Someone

Reply to
somebody

WD40 will appear to work well for a minute or two, until the cutters get hot and cause a fireball. I speak from stupid experience, and my eyebrows, mustache, and hair add their support.

Buy the sheets from an office supply place. They're cheap and neat.

Reply to
David Bostwick

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