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Comment by analog31 | Hacker News Reader

Indeed, gas engines probably drip or exhaust more oil. Certainly 2 stroke chainsaws.

There's a rumor among cyclists that "3 in 1 oil" is bad for bikes because it contains vegetable oil that gums up. But cyclists will debate about oil for days.

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Same with guitar players and fingerboard oils. Use mineral oil because it's food-safe and won't go rancid. Same reason I use it on my cutting board.

Wait a moment. Mineral oils are food-safe?

Don't they accumulate in the body and act as endocrine disruptors?

To my knowledge it can absorb a little through the skin but not through the intestines though more than a little will give you the shits real bad.

https://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-153865/mineral-oil-laxati...

Mineral oil is commonly used to coat/maintain butcher block cutting boards, and as a storage coating on high carbon knives. It is recognized as safe by the FDA when produced according to food safety guidelines and under quality control.

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfr...

Food-grade mineral oil is highly refined and doesn't contain any of the carcinogenic aromatics. It could be considered a lower molecular weight petroleum jelly. It's also used as a laxative.

Mineral oil is fine for a fingerboard, but there is a caveat. Being a non-drying oil, it won't dry and nothing will stick to it. So if you put mineral oil once, it is mineral oil forever. If you try to put linseed oil or tung oil on it later, it will not adhere.

I use boiled linseed oil and beeswax on the fingerboards of guitars I've built. Linseed oil is a drying oil which will polymerize when it reacts with air instead of going rancid like food oils.

Drying oils or mineral oil should both work for the job as long as you do not try to mix them.

Isn't a certain degree of gumming-up advantageous? It would keep the oil in place after it works it's way into all the nooks and crannies, ending up more like a grease. This behaviour could be good for corrosion prevention.

You want your oil (and grease) in the bearing surfaces, not in nooks and crannies. Tackiness can indeed be good though.

Oxidized vegetable oil is the most disgustingly tacky substance that I know. It's like a cross between rubber, glue, and grease. It is very resistant to removal with "intuitive" methods (but using un-oxidized oil and heat tends to work) and it doesn't lubricate, it sticks. It can't possibly be good for lubrication, I'd say. Unless you can somehow control the process so that it oxidizes just a little.

Well a slimy sticky surface rubbing against another slimy sticky surface doesn't cause wear.

And in a chainsaw, it's mostly wear you want to reduce. The frictional losses in the chain are low compared to the massive friction in the blades.

That's not how vegetable oils gum, they go sticky in a way that's not like grease. Hard to explain but if you feel them both there's a huge difference. Grease will stick but isn't stick-y in the same way if that makes sense.

That's a very strange rumor since 3in1 is petroleum-based.

Rumor dispelled. Thanks!

https://www.concept2.com/files/pdf/us/miscellaneous/MISC_MSD...

The closest thing I could find to mentioning vegetable oil was this thread:

https://umgf.com/three-in-one-oil-substitute-t37605.html

But the claim is without a reference, and the MSDS certainly appears to be the latest word.

Cyclists debate about oil for days. Cycle mechanics just use WD40.

Without falling into an oil debate, no cycle mechanic I’ve ever spoken to uses or would recommend wd40 for chain oil. It’s far too thin and is primarily for freeing stuck parts and cleaning. It’s not meant for long term lubrication - it dries out or get washed off almost instantly.

3 in 1 is fine, but the main advantage of a proper chain lube is that they don’t attract grime and dirt as quickly

WD40 is a terrible choice of chain lubricant, it’s too volatile.

WD40 is a penetrant, not a lubricant, I don’t know any Mechanics who use it.

Definitely will debate lubricants for days, but no one who is in the industry uses standard WD40

WD40 is absolutely a lubricant. The WD40 is not a lubricant thing just needs to die already. Of course it’s not the best lubricant for every job. In fact it’s probably not the best lubricant for any job, but it’s a good enough lubricant for many jobs. It’s also a penetrant and water displacer. Versatile products usually aren’t the absolute best choice for a given use case, but that doesn’t make versatility bad.

From Wikipedia:

> WD-40 is an American brand and the trademark name of a water-displacing spray

… and the definition of “water displacing spray” is “penetrating fluid”

It definitely is an oil, it definitely lubricates. But we normally name things by their primary purpose.

PB B'laster is the gentleman's penetrant. I don't really have a use for WD40.

You can use WD40 to clean the chain, but you better put real lube on the chain afterwards.

The replies are clearly cyclists.

I think this is part of the love for the machine, and is a part of hacker culture I find endearing even if it's not necessarily rational. I'd put tweaking your Linux windowing system into the same category :)

WD40 is primarily a mixture of mineral spirits and light mineral oil. The mineral spirits evaporate, the oil stays behind.

Waxing (also possible with bee wax) once you streamline the process (chain link, hot water for cleaning, cheap wax warmer the one women use and since the new chains (every 5000-10000km) are heavily pre-lubed you need 3 steps to remove the mineral oil: 1. soak in gasoline or alike for 1 day, 2. degrease and then 3. finish it off with white spirit) is imo the best for the chain.

Clean and smooth. I rewax every week (200km), takes me 10 min in total, also a a convenient way to inspect and adjust my whole drivetrain, regularly.

WD-40’s longer name is “water displacement 40”:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WD-40

Oil displaces water.

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