I make some items from card, which have moving parts, i.e. one piece of card slides over another piece of card. To lubricate the moving pieces of card I use candle wax.
Does anyone know of a better lubricant than candle wax, one that is more slippy, lasts longer, and does not mark the card? The use of candle wax goes back many scores of years, and I thought that there is likely to be a modern replacement that is an improvement, if only I knew what it was.
Regards
Silicone spray?
Shiny cardboard.
Sellotape ?
Though I haven't seen it around for a while and don't have a clue about it's use on cardboard, but it is a "dry" lubricant so may be worth a shot if you find a cheap source.
I don't think you'll find better from the point of view of not marking the card. Any spray type furniture polish would be much more slippery though.
Why not fit washers between the parts? Al
Some of the parts slide along, rather than pivot. Dann
Thank you all for the suggestions; I shall give them a try. Dann
May be worth trying 'fanning powder' as used by magicians to make playing cards easier to fan. Available from all good magic shops, like:
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "Dann" saying something like:
I would suggest a white teflon grease, but whether it's available easily is a matter for some digging.
I suspect that is nothing but talc. Try some baby powder or similar...
I would suggest a piece of PTFE sheet material. My company used to use it at the bottom of a stack of lead bricks to make it possible to adjust their position.
If its sensible given more knowledge of the application, what about a double layer of plastic bag material ? One layer fixed to the moving part and one to the fixed.
DG
Zinc stearate apparently. I tried talc and it doesn't work very well.
May be too dirty (not sure of the exact application) but how about powdered graphite? Easy enough to get...
Or even powdered PTFE. I got some at B&Q.
DG
Thanks for the further suggestions of things to try. Actually, I do have to hand some card fanning powder . . . Fifty years ago it was based on zinc stearate as suggested, and I used to buy it as zinc stearate because it was much cheaper that way. I don't know what is in fanning powder these days, but it looks very similar to what it was fifty years ago.
Dann
Fanning powder is still zinc stearate.
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