Winding an old clock

[The Medway Handyman]

No clever marketing or bullshit sustains a poor product over 50 years.

[Cicero]

It might have been made as a special 'Festival of Britain' version which was held in 1951 and if so it might have a greater value than bog standard versions.

Cic.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember "The Medway Handyman" saying something like:

You must be kidding.

[Jules Richardson]

Consider how it's used - mostly on items that are already old or exhibiting signs of wear. I think it takes a while for WD40 to cause problems - a user could easily have disposed of the item by then, be attributing problems to general wear and tear, or passed the item on to a new home. Sure, there'll be some exceptions - but for the majority it seems wonderful, because it fixes the symptoms of underlying problems quickly and easily.

The Yale one's interesting - I wonder what actual testing they did to show that WD40 was superior (and stayed superior over the lock's lifetime) to other products.

cheers

Jules

[Jules Richardson]

Yes, that could well be it. I'm not sure what the changes are for that particular year, so I don't know how it differs to the others before and after it.

For the OP, the chap I spoke to about my clock recommended Meadows and Passmore

for sources of oil, spare parts etc. (And he also had this to say: "Mr Fixit is the bane of proper repairers, he oils a clock without taking it to bits and getting rid of the old gummy oil. He has even been known to use WD40 or dunk the whole thing in white spirit! Enough to make a repairer scream!" :-)

cheers

Jules

[Alan Braggins]

You can get it in 5l containers for use with a hand squirt spray:

(I've never heard of it being sticky enough to actually glue anything >together, though) Nor me. And oil has the same problem of holding dirt in place. I've seen graphite recommended as a lock lubricant for that reason, e.g. you can always clean off builtup gunk with more WD-40 later, rather than expecting it to be a permanent fix. If you use it on something like a bicycle chain that was lubricated when new, cleaning off the existing lubrication can do more harm than the WD-40 does good, but you will find people telling you not to use it because its not a lubricant, because some guy on the internet says so.)

[Spamlet]

One thing I can say it is very good at: stopping flies buzzing.

S

[Jules Richardson]

any oil is sticky to a certain extent - I think real clock oil is supposed to be extremely thin for that reason.

Yeah, I think chains you're supposed to immerse in the "proper stuff" aren't you, so that the lubricant gets into the places where it wouldn't reach just by wiping.

re. clocks, a repairer once told me that most people overdo it and use far too much oil, when all it needs is a tiny bit on pivot points / shafts.

cheers

Jules

[The Medway Handyman]

Fine, but there is no scientific evidence whatsoever to support the view that it causes any kind of damage. All we have is anecdotal evidence from a bunch of luddites.

"Its American, so I can't admit its any good".

Dunno, but the worlds leading lock maker reccommends it, which seems to outweight a bunch of luddites.

[The Medway Handyman]

Alledged drawbacks.

[Spamlet]

--

And the similarity between locks and clocks is? (ocks) Some clocks have keys: I suppose you could reasonably safely use it on the keys.

S

[Spamlet]

The idea of the proper stuff is so that it doesn't immediately end up all over the back number plate and the people behind. My number plate was generally plastered with it none the less. Happy daze ;-)

S

[Dave Liquorice]

To carry the viscous oil into the places it wouldn't normally get to.

Well that is what it is, a water displacer and corrosion inhibitor. Which it does by coating stuff with a layer of sticky viscous oil.

[Jules Richardson]

Yes, certainly no argument from me there - but it's the turning from an apparently light oil to a more sticky one which is the root of problems, I think. Suddenly you end up with something with poor lubricating properties and that dirt sticks nicely to, which is never good for something with moving parts :-)

It's nice of the WD40 folk to put the above info on there (and more than they used to do, I think!) - but it's a shame that their marketing blurb always says "lubricates" where "temporarily lubricates" would paint a more accurate picture and perhaps stop people from treating it as a permanent solution.