Ball oiler

Bob, Do you have any idea why in the USA most lubricants are marketed using SAE except for hydraulic oils which use ISO (at least that is what I see most often)? Is that just another American bastardization?
 
Groundhog said:
Bob, Do you have any idea why in the USA most lubricants are marketed using SAE except for hydraulic oils which use ISO (at least that is what I see most often)? Is that just another American bastardization?
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Convention. "We have been doing it this way for more than a century. It was good enough for grandpa, good enough for dad, and good enough for me. Why fix something that ain't broken?" The other side of the coin is "Why remain a island with old technology that does not mesh with the rest of the world? It costs us lots of potential income and extra effort to make things that the rest of the world does not want. Why keep pushing back against the inevitable?" There is a sort of middle ground that says that when using computers and CNC equipment it really doesn't matter very much. The machines can make Whitworth threads just about as easily as ISO threads, and tooling needs do not change much. For hobby machinists, we can make anything we damn well please! We are still prisoners to what is available for our materials and consumables.
 
There is more. We are rapidly coming to a place where standards can be increasingly eliminated, and manufacturers will be able to do engineering work at the same time they are doing CAD/CAM work. Basically designing, engineering, and optimizing the part as it is drawn, all in integrated software. Then standards become almost meaningless, and it gives manufacturers the opportunity to use completely non standard parts in their products. They could make fasteners for an automobile that are all different from each other and from anything used in the past. That gives them total control over their product, and keeps the aftermarket away for service. No standards whatsoever. Instant and effective monopoly, no patents needed! It worked before the mid 1800's, and could happen again.
Edit: There I go, off topic again.
 
Lets throw in one more factor in the grades of oils and has authority over SAE or ISO. The organization called The American Petroleum Institute, API, and are the guys that dictate or controls of what comes out of the refinery in the way of oils long before SAE or ISO comes in. I will say API is the ISO of the oil industry, both have guidelines and standards that run side by side. SAE is slowly letting ISO/API take over what they used to govern in specifications of oil requirements for the automotive industry.
 
Great history lesson and teaching of oil grades and who controls the chemistry of them, too.

Lets get this back on track before it gets locked. Let see, were we talking about ball oilers? Yea?
 
A small plastic oil bottle with a steel tube and steel end cap came with both of my asian lathes. They don't seem to work very well though. No mater how I hold the tip of the oil tip against the ball oiler, I get a LOT more oil on the outside of the oiler than in it. I bought an all steel one and that does the same thing. Anyone have a link to some thing that works?
 
I use an oil pump can, mine is a goldenrod. I put a piece of rubber hose over the end, extending about 1/16" further out than the nozzle tip. Then push the nozzle into the ball. The tip opens the ball and the rubber hose seals it. The hose must be very tight on the nozzle. If I remember correctly I used 3/16" vacuum hose on mine. I very seldom get any leakage now.

Roy
 
I use a pump oiler with a short (~1-1/2" long) piece of 3/16" O.D. clear Tygon or vinyl tubing pushed over the end. Make sure the end that will contact the oiler is cut square and clean, no nicks. Grab the tubing between thumb and forefinger and push it down firmly over the ball oiler. Pump oil. you will see it come up into the plastic tubing and then into the oiler. It works very well, no mess, less wastage. That tubing gets hard after a few months in contact with oil. Replace it often, it is cheap.
 
Thanks for the tips Roy and Bob.

The all steel one I bought was a pump "goldenrod" too. Now I know how to improve this annoying little task.
 
I haven't tried it yet. Might try to modify the end on a flexible spout on a Golden Rod oil can to fit the ball oiler. Might be a trick to chuck up on the very end of it. Machine a 45 degree bevel, that way gives you a way to center up on the ball oiler.
 
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