[Steam-engine] Oils for engine parts

Jeff Smith steamenginesmitty at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 29 09:06:18 PDT 2005


I know this is a little off of the actual question of
oils for slides, but I think it is good information. 
A good friend of mines father (just down the street
from me and now deceased) built a 2' gauge shay
locomotive in the 1980's.  Here in Florida sand and
lubricants are a big problem, more like
nightmare......  He built the two cylinder engine with
Stevenson reverses on it and had trouble with oil
staying on in the heat of the summer even with the
thicker stuff.  One day he was messing around with STP
oil treatment and noticed that when he got it on his
fingers it stayed there, but when mixed with oil it
was then different.  He then tried using just the STP
on the Stevenson reverse and it stuck there and did
not drip off (as bad) in the heat like the other oils.
 He operated that engine for years with just STP on
there and never used oil, and I can vouch that to this
day (his son owns it and operates it) there is no more
wear than normal that occurs with oil over time.   To
take it a step further, my dad uses that stuff but
gets the cans at the dollar store where the cans are
considered defects because they have a little under or
over the amount specified on the can so STP will not
sell them as a regular can that has the correct
amount.  I also have noticed that this stuff is a lot
easier to clean up after running.  Just a little info
that might be of some help for the people with engines
with Stevenson links.

Jeff Smith

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 



More information about the AT mailing list