Cleaning locks and hinges after building work

I would suggest squirting loads of WD40 or Plus Gas into them.

Locks----------- WD40 Hinges ----------- use an old toothbrush. Or a new one. Would you like me to come round and hold your hand?

NEVER, EVER use oil in a lock. If the lock has been oiled before, then the grit will never come out, short of removing the lock and washing it in a solvent such as white spirit, petrol, MEK etc.. If the lock has NOT been oiled before, most of the grit can be blown out. If you need to lubricate a lock, use powdered graphite: sand a pencil on fine glass paper and brush the powder into the lock.

WD40 will wash the dirt out, then leave a sticky Water Displacing (hence WD) film that's carefully designed to keep your ignition dry. As a side effect it will wash out all the lubricant, and then trap all the dirt that comes near the lock.

Andy

Sweetie - I thought you'd never ask...

Most new houses suffer from this. Garage doors may be left on the ground, etc.

Tim Watts scribbled

Are you old enough? He gives a discount to pensioners.

Which means he'll leave you with one finger.

WD40 *is* a lubricant. It's light oil and propellant.

And my locksmith said it was fine for lubricating locks.

I don't know about hinges, but locks usually have masking tape over them while these operations are being done, over the ky holes and over the mortise bits. As for cleaning them after the fact. I'd suspect that might well be almost impossible as anyone who has ever taken a lock apart will attest, bits tentd to fly in all directions. Brian

As do many lock manufacturers like Yale.

A very soft pencil - hard pecils have a lot of clay in them.

hinges (I can hear and feel it when I operate them). What s the

Using any lubricant, no matter how low the viscosity in the presence of dust and grit will simply create a grinding paste which will wear away any metal surfaces even faster. The only exception is where entire mechanisms are permanently immersed in lubricant - gearboxes etc.

If, and only if, the dust is going to actually create a problem then it needs to be blasted away. Ideally with a solvent such as petrol, white spirit etc. applied with a high pressure plant sprayer or more realistically with a jet of water through a sprayer on the end of a garden hose. Once the dust is all removed and everything allowed to dry out, artificially if needs be then that's the time to apply any lubricant if needed.

michael adams

...

he was obviously looking for "replacement lock" business.

Well, he's s*it out of luck, then, since the 5-lever mortice lock I fitted to my front door 23 years ago and have been lubricating with WD40 from time to time ever since is still going just fine.

Would that be why Yale recommend it?

Tin foil hats on chaps, conspiracy theory alert.

Makes a lot more sense to buy the lock graphite. Readily available.

I think this is one of those areas where everyone is (a bit) right. First of all, cylinder and lever locks are completely different. WD40 will collect abrasive matter if it is present, but if there isn't much of it, it doesn't matter. In fact it may well help to flush abrasive deposits away, especially in lever locks. Lots of people use WD40 in both types of lock without any problems. If a lock isn't in fact doing all that many operations, then even if it is full of abrasive it may never wear out. Most locks are relatively robust; WD40 is much more likely to gum up (say) an alarm clock than a lock. Graphite powder is a good thing for high quality cylinder locks in dry environments; personally I would not faff around with a pencil given that you can buy a nice little bottle of proper graphite powder with a squirty nozzle. But in a damp environment WD40 provides water displacement and some corrosion protection (3 in 1 is even better).

Forget the dogma, use what works for you. For example I have a number of padlocks which are in daily use and exposed to rain. When they get sticky I tend to spray them with aerosol "white grease" from Toolstation. I find the sealing / water displacement properties outweigh the dirt attracting tendencies. If this doesn't work I will probably spray with WD40 or penetrating oil. If that doesn't work, they might get soaked in white spirit (perhaps in an ultrasonic cleaner).

Pencil leads are a blend of clay and graphite, which is then fired to a high temperature to sinter it all together. The 'harder' the lead, the more clay is in it. If you use a pencil lead as your source of graphite, the softer the lead, i.e. the more 'B's (3B, 4B, whatever, up to 9B) the better.

Grit plus the oil left behind by WD40 = grinding paste. Are you saying it isn't?

It doesn't take a conspiracy for a seller to recommend a sub-par product, there are various better explanations.

NT