And it smells good.
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I am not a machinist, and even if I were, I am not your machinist. That said, I have extensive experience with a certain type of bearings, having been a semi-competitive speed skater for many moons. Specifically, open-face 608 bearings. (Yes, ABEC-9 is worth the money; that āSwissā rated bullshit, not so much, though Iāve never tried the very pricey ceramic bearings.)
I once participated in a 24 hour relay race on an F1 track in Montreal. At about 3am it began to rain. Almost instantly, a significant fraction of the breathable air in the paddocks where all the teams were camped out had been replaced by WD-40 fumes.
Hereās the thing, though. Not only is WD-40 not a lubricant, it rather effectively washes away actual lubricants. I liken the effect to giving a wounded soldier morphine, meth, and more ammo before sending them back out to the battlefield. In other words, properly cleaning the bearings you used in the rain would be the best choice, but this was a speed and endurance event, not a skate maintenance clinic.
Once that WD-40 hit those bearings, they were compromised. Once those compromised bearings got back on the rainy track, they were disposable. In fact, by the time the sun came up, all those WD-40-soaked bearings were down to ABEC-1, if that.
When I held the job title of Registrar, I did a lot of shredding. We used corn oil, though I donāt recall why we believed that to be the best, only that it worked perfectly for us over the years.
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speed skating
didnāt realize there is competition on wheeled skates. was picturing ice, trying to understand how bearings appliedā¦
of course, the edge of an ice skate is a hydrodynamic bearing, but water itself is the only lube necessary.
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Holy crap thatās super bad newsā¦ I mean, I knew WD stood for āwater displacementā but dang, Iāve used WD40 on or in messed up gate lock assemblies that refused to turn, damp hedge clippers (yes really, and grass shears), a metal sword used for kungfu practice (which our teacher had recommended because thatās what he does with the ones at our school).
So IIUC the trick is to use WD40 and then a good lubricant right after it, in cases where getting at the innards or bearings of something is simply impossible?
ETA: I just realized that my using grass shears yesterday included WD40 also
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Iāve got a can of pressurized 3-in-1 oil, will be off to those gate locks to spray them with it, pending your advice.
I have a lot of 3-in-1 oilā¦
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Although inline skates were āinventedā a few times, going back to the 1890s, all modern inline skating traces its ancestry to competitive ice skaters wanting to train year-round. In fact, if you bought the right pair of boots you could swap between blades and wheels by swapping out the frame the boot sits on top of.
Very few skaters actually do that though, because itās preferable to have gear truly optimized for what youāre doing. And it also severely limits your choice of gear; off the top of my head, I think most or all 2 bolt ice frames have the bolts 165mm apart, whereas most inline frames are 195mm, with Bontās 3-bolt frames being very popular now that many speed skaters are on 100mm or 110mm wheels, and even sometimes 120mm. For reference, classic plastic Rollerblades use 80mm wheels, and the folks doing skateboard-type tricks use 68mm.
Wheel size is of course a gear ratio, so bigger wheels gives you higher top end but less acceleration. But once you get to the point that you can humble the average cyclist on 100mm wheels, you drop back down to 80mm and you can just about skate up a wall. But then you find that you have to work at full strength pretty much constantly to maintain cruising speed, which gets old quickly.
Some of the top ice skaters compete in both sports, because itās pretty much the same, apart from few details like sweating in the heat of our glorious, life-giving sun vs. sweating in a cold, bleak warehouse, or the phenomenon of road rash.
Fun fact: I have raced against Apolo Anton Ohno, whom most of yāall have probably heard of. Of course, he was back at his hotel room getting a shower and a beer long before I even spotted the finish line, but still, we were in the same race.
Those things donāt have/require the tight tolerances of high-end bearings. You can skate in the rain and WD-40 your bearings, then lube them later. Theyāll still turn, but you definitely wonāt enjoy skating on them. At all.
I think the use cases you mention, where WD-40 does get the job done quite nicely, leads people to believe itās an actual lubricant as well. I know I believed that until about a year before the aforementioned late night in Montreal.
I donāt know, but would guess, that a locksmith would say that WD-40 in a big old gate lock is fine, but in a typical keyed lock, much less so. Graphite powder is great for those uses, but of course, has no penetrating/solvent/autofix properties.
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This is still a really good story. Thanks for sharing it.
This also puts your experience with high-performance bearings in a context for me.
Win-win.
If anyone trained like that outside where I live, itād be heatstroke for maybe 5-6 months/year.
I have graphite powder, in one of those squeeze bottles with a fine tip, and itās pretty good in door locks. I should just go ahead and treat the gate locks (which are far more exposed to weather) with it. And gate hinges, as long as Iām going the whole enchilada.
Thanks again.
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thatās what I do for bike chain servicing.
my old method of taking it off, meticulously cleaning it by shaking it in a jar with water-based solvent (for easy disposal in sink drain), repeat until solvent is clean, evaporating the solvent in the toaster oven, then relubing and reinstalling was no fun. I knew WD40 was shit lube but when the water displacement thing was explained to me, I hit upon a much easier chain service. it really works for me since I daily commute and get rained on usually more frequently than I would ordinarily do my chain.
on a wet day, I get home with a wet chain with road grit mixed in the water. since itās wet anyway, rinse the grit and dirt off the chain with a hose [and my rims and brake pads (use only low faucet pressure, you donāt want hi pressure anywhere near the grease inside your bearings in the hubs, cranks etc)].
bounce the bike on the tires to shake off what water you can. hold WD40 straw against top of chain, spray while spinning crank. super-saturate chain, then grip a rag around it and spin crank to absorb WD40. move rag over slightly and do it again to get it really dry. lube chain. let penetrate maybe 15 minutes, use rag again to remove excess lube from surface (lube is only for internal pins and rollers, dirt will stick to and wear a chain with lube on the exterior.)
way easier and faster, and therefore Iām less likely to put it off, too.
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I honestly donāt know if itās the right choice for outdoor stuff. Couldnāt it get clumpy or whatever in the weather? Iāve only ever used it for interior doors and hinges. I know my advice is correct with regards to skate bearings, but beyond that, luber beware.
I can do thirty miles at a 100Ā°F heat index. I know how much water, electrolytes, and calories I need per ten miles in summer heat, though acquiring that data was a bit fucking rough at times. Keep in mind that just as adding humidity gives you heat index, adding wind gives you wind chill. So all ya gotta do is keep your ass in motion, and itās not nearly so bad.
Ever tried one of these?
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yeah, I have one, but itās a lot easier to just use a hose (again: LOW PRESSURE!) if Iām already outside and my bike is already wet. if it wasnāt for that, like if I lived in a desert climate, theyāre easier than the jar method. Iād still use water-based solvent (citra-slove, simple green) because eco and how the hell does one ethically dispose of kerosene etc in a normal household, whereas you can just pour simple green down the sink. so Iād still displace the eco solvent with WD40 anyhow.
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BTW, how to make it nice and shiny:
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Ceramic bearings are amazing, but Iām not sure if skating is right application for them. While they have amazingly low friction and need no lubrication, they require very clean environment, and can be damaged by vibrations. The ones I used in milling machine spindle also needed to spin at lower speed until they reached operating temperature before being loaded or operated at full speed.
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With a max theoretical ground speed of 50mph, how many RPMs is that with a 100mm or 120mm wheel wrapped around it?
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So they have only ceramic balls - that explains a lot. They are very different from fully ceramic ones.
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Oh, as opposed to the races?
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Exactly, such bearing is called hybrid bearing.
The ceramic ones Iāve seen had ceramic races too. The coefficient of friction was so low that the wheel seemed only to slow down due to aerodynamic drag.
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I know that compared to cheap bearings, thatās what it feels like to skate on ABEC-9. And supposedly those ceramics feel like ABEC-15 or thereabouts, plus the whole rust thing. But the conventional wisdom, which I happen to believe, is that all that extra cash will give much better returns if spent on wheels.
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Itās 2020, and itās my life. Nothing goes well if I have a plan.
I had a plan for an herb spiral. This is what happened.
2 tiny sage plants, an explosion of chamomile followed by an explosion of parsley. No rosemary, no thyme. No other herbs. They either didnāt come up, or died after transplanting. There is a creeping volunteer tomato, and some smallish paste tomatoes on the vine since weāre still getting growing temperatures. But not the huge bounty I planned for.
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