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Lubricants and Lubrication - Part One

I've been meaning to get this series of articles started, and I guess now is the right day. I will attempt to cover a lot of information on questions that we receive on a regular basis, as well as provide you with a fundamental understanding of lubricants and lubricating so that you will be able to make much better informed decisions on the best ways to protect your gear. Almost all of our customers are concerned about what types of lubrication are out there, which types are best to use for which applications, and exactly how much does the proper lubrication play in the scheme of everything when it comes to protecting and extending the life of their equipment, whether that be a fishing reel or a million dollar piece of machinery.

I want to take things in a progressive order that will give you the complete understanding that you need about lubricants and lubrication.

Lubricants and Lubrication - Part Two

Let's get back to friction. There are several types of friction that need to be considered depending on the physical makeup of the materials. There is Rolling Friction, Sliding Friction, Static Friction, Kinetic Friction, and Stick-Slip Friction. A lot more is at play on parts than you might have at first thought. Sliding friction normally applies when you have two flat parts that move against each other, for example two metal plates. Rolling friction as you might have guess is mostly encountered in bearings, however it can also apply to gear meshing together along with sliding friction.

Now to make things even more confusing, there are several different forms of contact that can exist between contacting parts.

Solid Friction (Dry Friction) occurs when you have two solids that have direct contact with each other without any separating layer, this will cause high coefficients of friction and wear. Correct lubrication is critical in these situations.

Lubricants and Lubrication - Part Three

Viscosity
In this part we are going to start off by diving right into Viscosity. We all have been exposed to these term at one time or another even if it was really apparent at the time, you've all heard motor oil such as 30W or 90W, and so on, this is viscosity. The measurement of friction generated by fluid surrounding two parts without the actual contact of the parts is called internal friction, or Viscosity. More technically, Viscosity and its dimensions are best explained with a model of parallel layers of fluid which could be viewed molecularly. If this packet of fluid layers is sheared (s), the individual fluid layers are displaced in the direction of the shearing force. The upper layers move more rapidly than the lower layers because molecular forces act to resist movement between the layers. These forces create resistance to shearing and this resistance is given the term dynamic viscosity.

Reel Bearings - 101 Class is in Session