Originally Posted by
geargnasher
Jeff, your tips and advice is much appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to wade through this compilation of our founderings in lube technology. It's tough to do this thing without letting on too much about some people who make money on their personal work like you, Veral Smith, Glenn Larsen, and Dan Congliosi. I haven't shared much of anything from my own lab evaluations of several items in question here except for what's been said by the creators of the formulas themselves. If I had a formula I was selling I'd want people who figured out what it was to keep it to themselves, and most of use here I think share that basic sense of respect.
What we're after is an "open source" formula like Felix's lube and the NRA formulas, not a money-making proposition, although personally I wouldn't mind if a site sponsor like Randyrat or White Lable produced a commercial version for those who didn't want to make the stuff themselves.
Interesting what you mentioned about the stearates. Lithium tends to be "thixotropic" when mixed with any sort of wax, meaning it sets up hard when it cools and goes soft when worked, similar to the effect carnauba wax has on any wax-based lube. However, SODIUM stearate doesn't do that at all. Mixing the two stearates makes the thickeners more work-stable. I'm sure you noted my reference to the 1940's US patent that addressed the work-stability issues of greases by combining lithium, sodium, and magnesium in hydroxide form with the base oil and then making grease out of it by reacting stearic acid with it, making what I've been calling a "tri-stearate" grease. If working consistency is important (is it?) then that's the way to go.
Ian