Using WD-40 when repair an FSU camera

[ZorkiKat]

No, it's far too thin and sticky. It'll be very likely to run into places where it'll cause problems too. Use a leightweight grease, preferably silcone-based so it won't deteriorate with age. Lithium-based cycle greases are favoured by a lot of people.

+1 on this. Some soviet lenses have threads which don't finely engage with each other- plenty of space for play between the grooves. The heavy grease which they used (fish oil based?) had a second purpose- it made the grooves in the helicoids engage better and tighter by filling in some of the loose spaces.

I suspect that part of the lenses' accuracy in focusing movement relies on the heavy grease. I believe Jupiter-9 need this heavy goo in them.

I use automotive axle grease for Industar-61 helicoids.

 

[literiter]

I would never use WD-40 for a camera. Maybe a squeaky car door, or the sliding door rails on my old van but never a camera. I'd use 3IN-ONE or sewing machine oil, even gun oil first. Good grief!

Micro tools has a nice selection of lubricants, like Nyoil, for cameras. http://www.micro-tools.com/

 

[ed1234]

WD-40 never gets the job done, period.

 

[LKeithR]

WD-40 never gets the job done, period.

Not entirely true. As a "penetrating fluid" designed to loosen stuck threads it can work very well. If you use it on something which will be disassembled and cleaned completely before reassembly it is fine but it is NOT designed to be a permanent lubricant and this is where most people go wrong.

I had a door lock which had become sticky so I sprayed a bit WD-40 inside. Worked like a charm. Everything worked smoothly again...for about two weeks! Applied more WD-40 and freed things up nicely but, yeah, you guessed it, two or three weeks later it was worse. One more cycle like this and it cost me a hundred bucks to have a locksmith come out and make it right. He too told me that he made a lot of money "cleaning" perfectly good locks...

 

[ZorkiKat]

Most of the WD-40 associated faults described here appear to be related to how the lubricant is applied, rather than what the lubricant itself has.

 

[David Hughes]

Baffled by all this (I didn't think it's a lubricant) I looked on their website and here it is:

http://www.wd40.co.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1519

So what do we make of that? I am doing the typing equivalent of biting my tongue...

Regards, David

 

[ed1234]

Heard WD 40 on the rocks is pretty smooth, gotta be at least 15yr old though.

 

[_goodtimez]

I use synthetic air compressor or air conditioning oil. Very thin and does not degrade with time, cheap and easy to find.