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Machines - Lathes - Lubrication

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I have a Homier 10 x 12 mini lathe and was wondering what other users of similar lathes are using to lubricate their lathes and what parts are they lubricating.

The reason that I am asking is the I started making reel seat spacers and this creates a lot of sawdust that would stick to the parts of the lathe that has been lubricated.

Do others have this problem?  (Tom Peters)

I use a light coat Castrol synthetic oil for the most part on the lathe except for the plastic gears where I use a dry lube.  I have Boeshield T9 which I'm going to try this weekend as it is pretty moist here in the NW.

With the light coat of synthetic oil there is minimal sticking of sawdust. I also use a box fan where I've added a 10x20 furnace filter mounted behind the lathe to help catch dust and cork sanding.  (Ron Hossack)

Just spent the morning changing out a gear or two on my lathe, and in the process cleaned up a big pile of grease and gunk.  Just wondering, do the metal gears in lathes need a good coating of grease?  Is light machine oil better?  Or are the gears designed to run clean?  (Harry Boyd)

Grease is horrible stuff, and, generally, cannot be used too sparingly. Oil is infinitely preferable, provided that you can keep it on the job, as distinct from on the walls, you and anything else in its way when it is subjected to centrifugal force.  (Robin Haywood)

Oil and gears don't generally work well together.  Not sure about a lathe, but unless the gears run in an oil bath grease is much more likely to stay put.  A light coat should be fine, too much grease will just squeeze out and make a mess.  This is based on 32 years working on IBM equipment.  Card dust (anyone remember the old punch cards?) is very abrasive and wanted to get into everything.  We did monthly preventive maintenance on a lot of things for this reason.   I use a white grease, Lubriplate or similar now.  (Neil Savage)

As I remember with my garage door; oil and paraffin worked well together when applied to the sliding rod.. The paraffin kept the oil from getting sticky with age.  (Mark Dyba)

There is a source of lathe information which is the Army manual and it's free.  (Rich Jezioro)

You can not go wrong with grease. (Mike Fennell)

The grease I have used for years in everything from wheel bearings to my lathe, and our shop machinery at work is called Lubriplate.

It's not a real heavy grease, but will withstand high speed gears. It also doesn't gum up as bad from cork dust like the grease that came with my lathe originally.

You can buy it in most auto stores.   (Tom Vagell)

You can buy Teflon grease these days.  The stuff I use on bicycles is red and gelatinous and is made by Weldtech, here in the bonny UK. It's a technogrease.

Since my needle point grease gun is full of green silicon based grease for use on the outside of outboard motors that gets used too, with equal efficiency.   It may be called Quicksilver,  perhaps? Probably not.

Modern greases don't oxidize so quickly. When I serviced the reel on which the then record carp had been caught it was full of brown dust. This was the oxidized grease that was put in the reel a quarter of a century before!

Amazing how much better it was with a smear of something modern, albeit still utterly knackered.  (Robin Haywood)