"Sticky"/ viscous oil to slow down moving parts.

[S. Heslop]

Not quite sure how to explain this. I've made a kind of tripod head to make use of an old telescope tripod to mount a video camera. The old tripod already had a pan pivot with that sort of sticky oil inside of it, which makes the horizontal movement very smooth. Which is certainly nice for recording video!

heres a photo for interest

The part I made includes the tilt pivot for the vertical movement. It's pretty jerky as is though.

I don't know much about oil at all, and googling is just getting me stuff on frying pans. But how would I go about finding/ making a thick grease. I'm worried that just trying things out like a mix of hydraulic oil and roofing tar might go hard inside the pivot.

[vtsteam]

Petroleum based greases won't dry out, vegetable types will, though. Increased temperature will soften most greases so could get kind of messy if it isn't contained -- can't quite tell from the photo where you plan to put it. Particularly messy if your tripod happened to spend some time in a car in summer. You'd probably want something transparent, unlike most automotive greases. I suppose you could try Vaseline or equivalent petroleum jelly -- but again, heat might be a problem. Also any grease will tend to pick up dirt, if exposed.

Maybe a wax would be better?

[Bluechip]

Most grease is stiff anyway. Just made a ball-turner with Castrolease LM in it to put some drag on it.
 
But I would guess any grease would do the same. Just happen to have a tin.
 
If you want a stiff 'oil' nip off to the chemist and get either liquid paraffin or glycerol which is more viscous.
And probably less gruesome than mineral 'steam oil' which is thick. IIRC
 
Otherwise stuff like gearbox oil is viscous ...[  EP90 and the like I think, not used it for ages ]

Not possible to arrange some sort of friction lock and avoid the subject altogether ??

Failing that ... Golden Syrup ??? Marmalade ???
 
Have fun ... 
 
Dave BC
 

[philf]

The stuff you need is Kilopoise grease.

I use it on microscope focussing slides.

Have a look at http://www.rocol.com/products/kilopoise-high-viscosity-damping-grease

From the above page:

KILOPOISE damping grease can be used for the lubrication of slides, gears and threads on instruments to impart smooth positive movement with a ‘silky’ feel by providing damping and increased friction/drag.
•KILOPOISE greases do not harden due to their extremely low volatility, therefore, adjustments can be continually made
•Damping action allows smooth precise movement
•Allows larger clearances and tolerances on mating parts
•Low volatility, therefore product remains unchanged over long periods
•Seals against moisture

Cheers.

Phil.

[Bill Stupak]

Chain saw bar oil is pretty viscous.

Bill

[S. Heslop]

The stuff you need is Kilopoise grease.

I use it on microscope focussing slides.

Have a look at http://www.rocol.com/products/kilopoise-high-viscosity-damping-grease

From the above page:

KILOPOISE damping grease can be used for the lubrication of slides, gears and threads on instruments to impart smooth positive movement with a ‘silky’ feel by providing damping and increased friction/drag.
•KILOPOISE greases do not harden due to their extremely low volatility, therefore, adjustments can be continually made
•Damping action allows smooth precise movement
•Allows larger clearances and tolerances on mating parts
•Low volatility, therefore product remains unchanged over long periods
•Seals against moisture

Cheers.

Phil.

That sounds like exactly it. DAMPING GREASE seems to be the keyword. The other thing I was worried about with using things like wax or more regular greases is that they'd probably lose alot of their viscosity as they warm up from moving the joint around.

Do you get any 'tuneability' with it though? Like could I try source a small tube of a more and less viscous one, and play around with mixes to try and match the friction on the horizontal to the friction on the vertical?


Heres another picture of it in bits, for anyone that might care. There's still a few things I need to add before it's complete.

[S. Heslop]

Boy, with the price of even tiny tubes of damping grease I'm considering just scraping as much as I can out of the telescope's focussing slide.

[redshift]

Just a thought, Could you use a small pneumatic cylinder sealed and filled with oil and regulate the damping by drilling a suitable sized hole in the piston.
A small rose joint on each end to fix to suitable mounting points and Bob might be your uncle.
Regards
Dave

[philf]

I'm not sure if it's available in different viscosities but you could get some tuning by either adjusting the clearance or the area of the bearing surfaces.

There's a long list of stockists on the Rocal website but how many of these stock Kilopoise I don't know. RS sell 450gm tins at £74.70 + VAT! I have done a quick Google and can't find it in tubes.

There may be equivalents.

If you are anywhere near me you're welcome to try some.

Cheers.

Phil.

[S. Heslop]

I'm not sure if it's available in different viscosities but you could get some tuning by either adjusting the clearance or the area of the bearing surfaces.

There's a long list of stockists on the Rocal website but how many of these stock Kilopoise I don't know. RS sell 450gm tins at £74.70 + VAT! I have done a quick Google and can't find it in tubes.

There may be equivalents.

If you are anywhere near me you're welcome to try some.

Cheers.

Phil.

I found one firm selling a box of 5 syringes of a different brand damping grease covering a whole range of viscosity, but for £80. Still not sure if you'd get away mixing them to try and reach a viscosity in the middle though. According to another thing I found Rocol discontinued the 50g tubes of the stuff over a year ago, which is tragic.

I think i'd like to try and find my own tube though but thanks for the offer. It seems like it'd be useful stuff to have around. I found some stuff on a motorcycle forum about using it for throttle handles, so maybe i'll try asking in some of the bike shops next time i'm going through that part of town.

[fcheslop]

I was thinking maybe telescopic fork leg oil??? or silicone grease mixed with silicone oil

[philf]

I found one firm selling a box of 5 syringes of a different brand damping grease covering a whole range of viscosity, but for £80. Still not sure if you'd get away mixing them to try and reach a viscosity in the middle though. According to another thing I found Rocol discontinued the 50g tubes of the stuff over a year ago, which is tragic.

I think i'd like to try and find my own tube though but thanks for the offer. It seems like it'd be useful stuff to have around. I found some stuff on a motorcycle forum about using it for throttle handles, so maybe i'll try asking in some of the bike shops next time i'm going through that part of town.

Try this link - more affordable but only 1.5ml grease: http://www.mindsetsonline.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1166

Phil.

[fixerup]

I'll second Bill, chain saw bar oil is sticky for sure and cheap.
Cheers!
Phil

[Noitoen]

A step in another direction, you can use a non-Newtonian fluid like cornstarch. http://www.instructables.com/id/How-To%3A-Make-Non-Newtonian-Fluid-%26-Experiment-wit/ 

[PekkaNF]

There are viscous fluid filled couplings, differentials and damppers. I hope I knew the words.
http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential5.htm
http://www.syncro.org/VCTest.html

I know there is viscous coupling liquid for very much lower temperature, because I have seen couplings that worked in slow motion in room temprerature, but can't remember for what they were made for, probably for office machines and such. This was something like 10 years ago. If I got it right, inside were just a stack of plates drilled trough to allow liquid stay in the plates and every other plate was driven from rim and everyother from centre....just like a normal coupling. Would this work with normal grease?

PekkaNF

[sparky961]

A bit off the wall and out of the box, not to mention half-cocked and not fully thought out.... but what about meshing two gears, one of them connected to a clock spring, the other on your shaft?  With the right gear ratio I think this would provide a damping effect.  I'd have to experiment.

[S. Heslop]

Thanks for the suggestions but i'm mostly trying to keep this one quick and easy.

[andyf]

I needed something similar on a stand for the spotting scope I use when target shooting, and incorporated a leather washer soaked in grease. If you have an old pair of shoes, that might be worth a try.

Andy

[Pete W.]

Hi there, all,

Have a look at the following:

http://www.nyelubricants.com/products/damping.shtml  and http://uk.farnell.com/nye-lubricants/868h-100g/damping-grease-heavy-100g/dp/1712888

Some microscopists use Nye greases on their microscope sliding parts.  I am in the UK and bought their Hobbyist Lubricant Kit plus a 2 oz tube of Nyogel 767A from Micro-Tools Europe Gmbh., Their email is mte@micro-tools.com .  The price (in 2007) was 57 Euros including shipping & taxes.

If that's too expensive, contact your nearest microscopist and ask for a small quantity on the blunt end of a tooth-pick.  A little bit of that stuff goes a long way!

Best regards,

Pete W.

[S. Heslop]

I needed something similar on a stand for the spotting scope I use when target shooting, and incorporated a leather washer soaked in grease. If you have an old pair of shoes, that might be worth a try.

Andy

I like the sound of this. Seems to be within my budget so i'll give it a go.

If that's too expensive, contact your nearest microscopist and ask for a small quantity on the blunt end of a tooth-pick.  A little bit of that stuff goes a long way!

I've been tempted to ask around the university but i've never really had much luck with that in the past.

[philf]

Did you look at the link I posted for 1.5ml of damping grease for less than a fiver?

http://www.mindsetsonline.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=1166

It looks as though they might be repackaging Kilopoise in tiny quantities.

Phil.

[S. Heslop]

Something exciting arrived through the post today.




There's loads of this stuff! Thank's very much Phil for sending it.



Degreased then stuck a little bit on each half of the spindle. Needed so little of it that that tube will probably last a long time.

I put a little sillicone rubber plug into the locking screw hole. Also added a nut to lock the screw itself. Forgot to take a photo of it though.

After a bit of fiddling I got the friction right so that it moved smoothly but didn't droop with the weight of the camera. I'll probably weld a counter weight onto the front of the thing at some point though.



Here's the whole tripod in front of the messiest corner of the garage. I'm saving cleaning that up till I've made what I want to fill the space with.

But the stuff really works great. Even just framing a still shot takes alot less fiddling on the vertical to get right since it's no longer jerking about. Hopefully i'll take some interesting video to show for it.