Durst L1840 Enlarger 8x10 10x10--Everything you wanted to know...

[SUNdog]

I notice Durst recommends using an acid free grease on the vertical adjustment shafts of a L184 enlarger. Does anyone have a recommendation as to a brand of grease?

Thanks

[Tin Can]

These are shafts with sliding bearings?

Perhaps chrome plated steel shafts running vertically with no large load, only alignment of platens?

Perhaps the bushing is metal, not plastic?

Perhaps bronze?

Nobody answered so you got me, a mechanic.

I imagine you want very little grease of whatever type as you don't want a mess.

Grease viscosity varies.

The desire is to ease movement and not wear the chrome plating.

Now somebody will pipe up and tell you their way.

I would have to see the darn thing.

https://www.machinerylubrication.com...t-grease-types

[ic-racer]

[Tin Can]

Ok, I see now.

Is it steel on steel?

Don't breath Spray Dry teflon
,
This is perhaps another option Spray Dry Graphite don't breathe it either.

I tested both years ago as our company made both.

Both will wear off producing dust.

An actual sticky grease may be better.

Any grease that is not too hard to clean off. As it will need replacing as it scrapes off the critical surfaces. They could have used oiled wool wipes

We also made the now banned 'Clean Off' which was spray Trichlorethylene. That stuff killed a coworker. It vaporized any oil or grease so he could breathe it. RIP.

[SUNdog]

I added some pics so that folks maybe can get a better idea of the areas where grease should be applied.

[ic-racer]

1840 oiling supplement.pdf

[Cor]

We also made the now banned 'Clean Off' which was spray Trichlorethylene. That stuff killed a coworker. It vaporized any oil or grease so he could breathe it. RIP.

Trichlorethylene is great stuff for cleaning shutters (a stuck gear train of a Copal shutter for instance), BUT it's dangerous & toxic, I use it very sparsely, in a FUME HOOD, gloves and face protection.

Best,

Cor

[Tin Can]

We had huge high volume vent hoods everywhere, he loved cleaning his desktop every few hours with the poison.

I tried to get him to stop 100's of times. He worked in his own office/laboratory.

I was foreman, it was night shift, and nobody would have done anything even if I went up the chains of command.

He also was a good friend for 20 years.

A building maintenance man cleaned the large Trichlorethylene dip tank, he also died early. That process was shut down.

Trichlorethylene is great stuff for cleaning shutters (a stuck gear train of a Copal shutter for instance), BUT it's dangerous & toxic, I use it very sparsely, in a FUME HOOD, gloves and face protection.

Best,

Cor

[Drew Wiley]

1:1:1 trichloro was actually first concocted as an anesthetic. Later it became known as "safety solvent" due to not being flammable. Well, put two and two together. I had a huge argument with a Dow chemist once over safety issues. It was in all kinds of products before it was banned, and then, not due to itself, but due to dioxin contamination. Janitors would mop floors with it; and it did a wonderful job getting gum off and other stickies without damaging vinyl flooring. But then the janitors would get woozy and pass out; and since trichloro is heavier than air and displaces oxygen, they'd be found dead the next morning, lying on the floor asphyxiated. When certain smoggy solvents were banned from siding stains, 1:1:1 was directly substituted, and painters would get dizzy and fall off ladders; and in one instance, I recall an electrician getting goofy and accidentally burning down a house. At one time, it was the main ingredient in film cleaners.

[Tin Can]

Maybe, as I have many dead friends, so many died before 21 that I never thought I would live past 21.

But just now I saw a Red Cardinal burst from under my porch.

A sign of luck and romance.

and now I go to pluck a Lily for still life...

death follows him like a starving rat