tadchem wrote:
On Aug 3, 7:23 am, Alan wrote:
What substitute oil can I use to save me the cost of buying an additional
special oil for my Fellowes cross-cut shredder used in my home office?

Shredder manufacturers say to avoid WD40.

WD40 is not a general purpose lubricant. It is a penetrating oil.
Its designed purpose is to ooze into cracks between pieces of metal
that have been frozen together by rust/pressure/etc. and provide
enough lubrication to allow them to be separated. The secret of WD40
is in the *volatile* components, which give it a low surface energy
(google "angle of repose") so that it spreads out on the metal surface
and displaces absorbed water (which leads to oxidation of the metal -
rust).

You want a lubricant that is non-volatile, even at operating
temperatures. As a GP lubricant my lab used motor oil (SAE 50 or
less) for most applications. In sensitive applications where
microliter amounts were needed, but excess would cause contamination
problems, we applied it with an insulin syringe.

It seems some shredder oils are the consistency of a light machine oil
which is heavier than I would have predicted.

The heat of normal operation will reduce the viscosity of the oil
somewhat.

I wonder if some of the newer lubes (graphite sprays, PTFE, etc) would do
a good job? I guess the main requirements are probably

(1) to avoid the oil dripping off the blades soon
(2) to have enough lubricant powert os top wear
(3) to avoid holding paper dust such that over time it becomes congealed.

Dry lubricants can be very useful. We used Dow-Corning's Moly-Kote
(molybdenum disulfide base) for anything requiring high temperature
stability, low vapor pressure, or where servicing down-time is
expensive. Downside is that the aerosol cans are messy to use: if
delicate application was required we sprayed a small amount into a
small container and then painted/daubed the Moly-Kote where needed.

========================

Advice pages on the internet seem confused:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060830093845AA7venA
(1) mineral oil.......food grade
(2) Mineral oil or sewing machine oil.
(3) We use 5W30 motor oil ours and it has been working fine for a year
and a half.
(4) use mineral oil. if you use any type of pertroleum based oil it will
get on the paper you are shredding, and in turn get into the land fill. i
know you are saying it is such a small amount, but how many shreders are
out there??? imagine if everyone used regular oil in their shreders....
imagine the amount of oil that would go into the land fill, and then into
the water table.
(5) They are all lubricants. Any oil is fine, WD-40 or whatever you have.
(6) A very light weight oil. sewing machine oil should do it.

[AFAIK mineral oil is a petroleoum oil]

Correct. Petroleum oil is simply an unspecified mixture of
hydrocarbons with a known boiling range:
As a rough guide:
http://eesc.columbia.edu/courses/u47...fractions.html
http://chemed.chem.purdue.edu/genche...anic/coal.html

I have tended to use a silicone spray lubricant or a silicon + PTFE spray
like these. However but they do not seem to provide enough lube to
prevent cuttings staying on the shredder blade (and I am not applying so
much lube thatthe cuttings stick to the blade).http://www.maplin.co.uk/Silicone_Gre..._Grease.search

Your problem may be static electricity. The cuttings from a paper
shredder are ideal for the old static electricity experiment of
running a plastic comb through someone's hair and holding it over the
shredded paper.

Look to electrically grounding the moving parts.

Or run the shredder in the bathroom. I don't think I'd use mineral
oil; after a while it would become gunk and have to be cleaned.

/BAH