Nailer lubricant

[Tom from Clayton]

I've been walking around several days now with a sticky note in my pocket reminding to get some lubricant for my Hitachi brad nailer. I'm not sure how picky I need to be on this. Can I use 3 in 1 oil or something similar? This nailer get very low use and I'm embarassed to admit I haven't added any lube to it yet.

Tom from Clayton

 

[Skymaster]

Tom: any borg blue or orange has nailgun oil.I would not use any other kind, it may have a bad effect on the O rings and seals

 

[ScottM]

I have not tried it but I have often been told Marvel Mystery Oil is used by most shops that repair these.

 

[sbarnhardt]

What would be the difference between "nailer oil" as opposed to something like "3 in 1 oil?"

When I got my Porter Cable compressor/nail guns combo the guns had a small bottle of oil in the case with the guns and that's what I've been using. But to tell the truth it looks and feels like just a light oil like "3 in 1." Never had occasion to look for "nailer oil" and didn't know there was something specific to that. Guess I'll have to look. My little bottles won't last forever.

 

[Gotcha6]

I have not tried it but I have often been told Marvel Mystery Oil is used by most shops that repair these.

+1 on MMO.
Any non detergent low viscosity (10 weight) oil will do. Transmission fluid will do in a pinch. Motor oils should NEVER be used. The detergent additives in them are detrimental to the Buna-Neoprene seal materials used in the O-rings of air and hydraulic tools.

 

[CrealBilly]

I learned a neat little trick from my brother-in-law. It's a trick to me anyways you guys may already know about it.

Put the impact wrench on a frozen nut, pull the trigger, the nut won't budge. Unplug the impact wrench, take a few drops of ATF and drop it in the inlet of the impact wrench, plug the wrench back in, try again and like magic the nut comes loose. My brother-in-law who is a certified diesel mechanic told me ATF is good for rubber seals but detergent oil will eat up most run of the mill rubber seals.

Pneumatic tools are by far my favorite kind of tools, so I faithfully oil them all with non-detergent 5~10 weight oil and use a few drops of ATF when needed.

hope this helps...

 

[Woodman2k]

Castrol and Marvel Mystery both make a really good air tool oil.There are additives that maintain there surface adhesion under high pressures and also facilitate the removal of any moisture that is present in your air supply.Generally when you finally oil a tool what you are doing when it speeds up is dissolving the builtup varnishes and what have you and exhausting them out of the tool.Put a cleaex over the exhaust of the tool the next time you oil it and check out the nastiness that comes out.At IR we put good airtool oil in our FRL's set on a slow feed where ever there is a concentrated use of the impact guns and die grinders.It works cause I have a 1970's era hand me down 1/2" impact gun that runs like a Thundergun.
Greg

 

[Gotcha6]

Air line oilers are a good idea, :icon_thum unless you're spray painting :cry_smile. I always heard to use an oil free line set for this purpose.

 

[FlyingRon]

Castrol and Marvel Mystery both make a really good air tool oil.

and MMO has a minty fresh scent.

 

[DaveD]

Just buy some air tool oil at the local borg and be done with it. 4 or 5 drops right in the port before using it each day, or if it sits around like some of mine do (for months sometimes) just 6 to ten on the first go around and then back to daily oiling. If I use a tool a lot in a 4 hour stretch I'll give it a few more drops in the afternoon.

I must have 20+ air tools (some cheap and some expensive) and have better things to do than think about what works and what doesn't.

 

[Gofor]

My guess is that most of you over oil your pneumatic equipment. Not that its a bad thing and does no harm except may cause oil to come out the exhaust which can play havoc with a coating.

Industry uses in-line oilers. The amount equates to about 1 drop per every 300,000 revolutions of a rotary air tool like a pneumatic sander. Piston type tools like a framing nailer need a drop for about every 1000 cycles. Brad nailers need about one tenth as much.

If used continuously on a line that has an oil/water separator, then you may want to be a bit more liberal.

A light weight non-detergent oil works well. If it has silicone in it , any exhaust may mess with coatings in the future, so stay away from that with items used in the wood shop.

3 in 1 works fine. Marvel works fine. Hydraulic fluid and brake fluid work fine. Most "heavy" hobby users need 1 drop per month. Those like me are more like a couple drops once a year.

JMTCW

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