Best Oil for my Gyro QC exports bearing

[Ticktockman]

What do you recommend as the best oil to replace the tired looking lubricant I found in the bearing of my Gyro QC.

Michell original, red line, J7's booster oil, baby oil anything too obscure please let me know where you get it in the UK. Thanks in advance

[Werner]

Mine run on Mobil One 0W-40.

[JaS]

Hi,
Motorcycle gear oil (designed for wet clutches) is good for turntable bearings. Unlike engine oil it hasn't got heaps of additives to cope with lubricating pistons and valves, or the detergents to carry away the crud floating around in car engines with their huge service intervals.

Gear oils concentrate on providing good shear stability and loading - ideal in this application.

http://www.putoline.com/en/product_deta ... talogId=85

Regards,
JaS

[abril]

I wish I had some suitable containers of 5mL or so as I have 1L of a top quality semi synthetic 80W gear oil that I could sell off that I used for a number of my previous turntables could make a killing on it!
Not much good for an inverted bearing

[audioorigami]

ticktockman
you can have a ptfe booster oil kit free...if you post your findings on this thread

here is what another michell user found:
BOOSTER OIL KIT

Can something as simple as the spindle lubrication make a difference to the sound?

Yes it can.

I must confess that I was slightly sceptical of whether this modification would work. That said, I wanted to give it the best chance to prove itself. Some of you may know of my recent turntable saga, which started with trashing my Roksan Shiraz cart and ultimately led to a Cardas tone arm rewire (a splendid job by Audio Origami on that and the cardas plug), converting to 3.5mtr balanced inputs from the tonearm to my World Audio Design Valve Phonostage so I could accommodate wall mounting my turntable on an adjacent wall. I've waited a few weeks to let everything settle and allow myself to get accustomed to the sound before getting round to doing the oil. Ideal opportunity tonight as Wife and baby are away for a couple of days.

What can I say?

Subtle it is not, at least not on my system. I reckon I've got a pretty good system buy most people's standards, gives me plenty of detail. and before tonight I thought I was getting lots of detail from my vinyl - lots more since I wall-mounted the Orbe'd Gyrodec. and that's taking into account running nearly 3 metres more tone arm cable than before.

So what does the oil do?

In a nutshell it lowers the noise floor to the point that there is so much more detail coming through. so what happens in effect is that the dynamic range increases. substantially. I'm listening louder than before - because I can. the background surface noise is so much less intrusive. so I'm finding that I'm compensating by turning it up a bit to hear the familiar vinyl surface noise, which is barely audible. Analogue recordings are obvious, even modern ones. I'm currently spinning Emilana Torrini's fisherman's Woman LP. it's a 45 RPM as well and the tape hiss is audible behind the music (just) even without headphones.

The Gyrodec/Orbe's strengths lie in it's bass, IMO, and also its weakness - the bass 'bloom'. the way round it is well documented on the web - to decouple the arm board from the Mickey-mouse ears with sausage-shaped loops of blutac on the top and bottom of each armboard spacer or get the Gert Pedersen Arm board mod which does the same thing (it was renewing the blutac that caused the demise of my shiraz). The Audio Origami oil tightens up the bass even further, by orders of magnitude. more focus as well as bass detail, but never overpowering. Treble is sharper too. closer to the crystal clarity normally associated with CD but still unmistakably vinyl.

One obvious side effect is that any scratches are accentuated a bit more, as are pressing defects.

It's just as well that the belt drive and motor slow the platter down when the motor is powered off, otherwise I think I'd still be waiting for it to stop spinning next week.

If you haven't already got some Audio Origami Oil in your turntable's spindle, you're not hearing the full potential of your turntable and vinyl. it's that simple. it takes a few minutes to do. but be warned, you'll be up all night with vinyl strewn everywhere...

kennyK (booster oil)

[JaS]

The oil you point to is 2 Stroke, a gear box is a gearbox right? Or is it that 2 Strokes have separate gearbox oil?

Hi,
2-strokes use gear oil whose job is to lubricate the gearbox and clutch, but not the crank main bearings/big end bearing/piston etc. Because of this they (a) don't have the engine additives and (b) can't have any additives which could make the clutch slip. This makes them subtlety different from car gear oil. Most off the shelf gear oils or engine oils can be used safely with a 2-stroke gearbox, it's entirely down to the additives, but a specific M/C gear oil is preferable.

An argument could be made that the friction reducing additives that make a wet clutch slip are fine in other applications, but they are usually added to improve the performance of a low grade oil, whereas a 2-stroke gear oil has to have a good base in the first place. Of course an oil with a high grade base and suitable additives could work perform even better?

The reason I linked to Putoline is that I used to sell it (and use it) many years ago and it worked wonders in abused competition gearboxes, making gear changes much smoother, and I've been very happy using it in my turntables. They also make several different weights and formulations (light, medium, heavy, 75W, 80W, synthetic fortified, synthetic, 100% synthetic etc) to experiment with

Regards,
JaS

PS Audio Origami's Booster Oil Kit gets a nod from me as it's much more than just oil - it includes all the items necessary to clean out the old bearing and refill the new one. I've used it and it definitely makes the job easier - the swabs in particular do a great job. My SP10 has been running fine since it had a thorough clean and re-lube with this kit and if I want to experiment with different oils I know have the tools to do this quickly. Not that I've felt the need...

[audioorigami]

JaS

I do believe oil could change the sound quality of a turntable. A change isn't always for the better, since my quest for a perfect oil.

Dave

you wont hear any differance if you keep your crash helment on

the kit comes with a full money back gtee...come out of the cupboard and try it...then you can talk with experiance

bw
j7

[audioorigami]

J7

Well excuse me, I'm not talking with inexperience either. I'm looking for opinions, we all know you love your own PTFE oil, but I'm sorry, I'm not going with any oil packed with solids.

I will eventually chooses the right oil for a turntable bearing with the help of the nice people here.

Dave

packed with solids is maybe an overstatement...the ptfe particles are only microns thick and are in suspension...they coat in any scores into the surface of the metal...so is best used once the bearing has run in

a few manufacters have looked into this over the years -linn have been using black oil with graffite for years now...and townsend used a thick black silicon with additives

hope that helps
bw
j7

[audioorigami]

ill send you a sample dave ...you can have a play with it and maybe just maybe you might like it...how does that sound?


bw
j7

[audioorigami]

hi dave

yes pm your address when your ready

maybe you could let the rest of the guys know how your experiments work out...

important question here m8...what turntable are you using? and how old is it

bw
j7

[Ticktockman]

What a generous offer. Does your advice on getting the old oil out vary for the inverted type bearings like the gyro. Not the place to ask but does your oil have any applications in direct drive turntables as my Technics 1210/nima /1042 project is finally getting somewhere but the unknown history of the deck does make me think a bit of bearing tlc may be in order before I make any final decisions. I will ring you directly if that ok to discuss this and a few other things that are coming up to the top of the pile.

[OnlyVince]

Hi,

Please advise your postal address via private-message and I will send you a free sample of my "Once" lube.

Regards, Vince

[audioorigami]

What a generous offer. Does your advice on getting the old oil out vary for the inverted type bearings like the gyro. Not the place to ask but does your oil have any applications in direct drive turntables as my Technics 1210/nima /1042 project is finally getting somewhere but the unknown history of the deck does make me think a bit of bearing tlc may be in order before I make any final decisions. I will ring you directly if that ok to discuss this and a few other things that are coming up to the top of the pile.

hi ticktockman

yes the instructions that come with the oil have an elite rock inverted bearing pictured...it works well on normal and inverted

plus the wee tools and suckers will let you get the old oil out and new in ...very easy and exactly

there is also some lint free polishing cloths...time spent cleaning the bearing and shaft will add years to the bearing

there is even a spare bottle to store your old oil (just incase you want to revert)

please pm me if interested in this free sample.....your thoughts on how it works or not would be interesting on this thread

[audioorigami]

[quote="quote=";OnlyVince"]Hi,

Please advise your postal address via private-message and I will send you a free sample of my "Once" lube.

Regards, Vince