Walt,
Sorry could not resist your analogy to eggs and sausage, etc.
Well, just like eggs and sausage can seem to affect chloresterol in those so
genetically sensitive to them; the WD 40 I have seen used, eventually seems to
get gummy, perhaps from retaining moisture and dust combined from the ambient
air.
For freeing up rusted bolts I will grab WD 40, if I can't find the true
penetrating oil. If I want to temporarily keep the lawn tool blades from
rusting I wipe 'em with 40, but it seems to not last long enough for a
permanent fix.
Thus, over the years, I have learned to have various lubricants, such as
Tri-Flow, (contains teflon ball bearings) and other specialized lubes
depending on what I am doing. And I prefer to use multi grade motor oils in
my cars and they seem to go for 100000 miles and sometimes a lot more.
(an aside) Today, I heard a car garage talk show where the mechanic said he
felt long term use of single grade oil was better for the cars maximum mileage
achievement. Go figure. He thought he saw water retention problems more
often in multi grade oil environments.
Thus, I fear switch lubes are a lot like use of your favorite motor oil,
everybody has a favorite, and sometimes that is because of specific properties
we have seen in our local use of some and not others. Personally, I have used
Cramolin when I had access to it, I have used GC Radio TV products when our
stock room stocked those. More recently, I have found just exercising old
switches once in a while if you are not using the radio regularly is helpful
with no other additive. I have seen the old Lubriplate greases get stiff in
long age of a radio. GC had a pretty nice solvent plus carbon for pots. The
stuff smelled like kerosene, and I imagine you could perhaps make it with
poweder graphite and kero.
73, Stuart K5KVH
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