' just bought four more gallons of ultrapure lamp oil...

[bloke]

I use it generously in my instruments, and generously in instrument repairs and instrument cleaning.

4 gallons makes up a case, and - including the wrongfully-charged "tax" - I paid around 15¢/oz.
(as compared to $2 - $4/oz. for concoctions labeled/marketed as "valve oil")


If anyone wants to buy any of these - though I'll eventually use them all, I'd be willing to part with two of the four gallon containers (LOCAL pick-up).
Since local pick-up, I suppose I would need to charge "tax". ...so - I guess - $21 total, for one of those two gallons, if anyone drives up and asks for one of them.

Straight up (or with a tiny bit of 30W added - for one 64-year-old tuba) I use it as valve oil for all of my personal instruments.
None of my valves ever "stick", and - were it that they did - "oil" would not be the culprit.

I also have been known to add a bit more 30W to use as slide oil, though - with my personal instruments - I prefer to use lamp oil which has NOT been thickened - to avoid migration of a thicker oil into my valve casings (which is an ACTUAL cause of "gunking up" valves).
ie....I rely on inside-outside tubing fit and alignment for smooth slide action, rather than "a thicker viscosity of oil".

For slides that are remotely located, and with which I actually prefer thicker "grease" (perhaps "main slides"), I use (typically: $1 - $2) STP Oil Treatment, with one container lasting a very long time (as one would last me a lifetime, were it not for repair work).

[Worth]

There are many brands of liquid paraffin lamp oil on Amazon and in the local stores. One on Amazon is called "ultra clean" and made by Hyoola. The specific Lamplight brand of "ultra pure" seem to cost more. Do you really think there is a difference among all these labeled ultra something? My last container of Florasense brand I got at WalMart seems to work but it is not ultra anything. Just wondering

[iiipopes]

I also have been known to add a bit more 30W to use as slide oil, though - with my personal instruments - I prefer to use lamp oil which has NOT been thickened - to avoid migration of a thicker oil into my valve casings (which is an ACTUAL cause of "gunking up" valves).

Have you considered using pharmaceutical grade mineral oil, @ $2/pint, for thickening? In my experience, a few drops added to a standard small "gig" bottle of valve oil for valves that are too worn for regular valve oil, but not worn enough to warrant rebuilding (like my old sousaphone) seals the valves without slowing them down, and also does not gunk up anything. And as you know, it is a helluva lot cheaper than buying Hetman's #3!

[bloke]

I guess I could, but I already have 30W sitting around here...
I almost never add anything to lamp oil, but only use it for a woodwind key oil types of applications like triggers, possibly rotor stems, and - sure - for Mrs. bloke’s woodwinds... Oh yeah and a very tiny amount of 30W added to it for my old Besson, but often I never get around to making a special bottle for it, and just use lamp oil on it as well.
Worrywarts find it frustrating to ask me questions about lubricants, and which ones are best. Valves that are not damaged or worn - and are clean - work well with all sorts of brands and formulations of oils.

[donn]

And in case anyone's thinking about going out and buying 30W for that, 10W-40 etc. work fine as wel. Diluted in a lot of lamp oil, of course.

When I can find it, I can detect no odor whatever in the oil I get. Other reports describe what is apparently a less refined product with various length chains and cyclics and stuff, with a kerosene type smell. Where that's being marketed as lamp oil, don't know how you'd know from the bottle which kind you're getting.

[Yorkboy]

+1 for Ultra-pure lamp oil…..works great for me, and when using it liberally while building instruments, it’s MUCH easier on the wallet. I’ve never noticed any smell, except for when it gets really old (I usually don’t have it long enough to have this happen tho).

I’m out on the STP, however - works fine, but I can’t get past the smell - too much like a car burning oil for my own tastes. Lanolin for the bottom slides, lanolin cut liberally with Ultra-pure for the top ones (aka “guppy-lube”). If they get dried out, a drop or two of lamp oil brings them right back.

[bloke]

I just like how well it works, how cheap it is, and - being cheap – the financial ability to - as often as I care to do it - drench the inside of a large tuba-sized valve section and do a good job of discouraging scale formation.
It’s also a pretty good cleaning product for filthy plastic surfaces - particularly cheap plastics, that are really susceptible to solvents.

I use so little STP that I really cannot detect an odor. Again I’m concerned about any sort of grease migrating into valve casings, only use STP on one or two slides (perhaps main and 2...possibly lower #3 and # 4) and the thinnest possible film of it.

[Yorkboy]

I just like how well it works, how cheap it is, and - being cheap – the financial ability to - as often as I care to do it - drench the inside of a large tuba-sized valve section and do a good job of discouraging scale formation.
It’s also a pretty good cleaning product for filthy plastic surfaces - particularly cheap plastics, that are really susceptible to solvents.

STP, or Ultra-pure (I’m assuming the latter)?

[bloke]

Both are remarkably inexpensive.

After a few months - when STP tends to get slightly thicker, I might put a drop or two of lamp oil on an STP slide, rather than adding any more STP.

I don’t like red rot, and I don’t like cleaning my own instruments for free. For these reasons, I try to keep the insides of my valve sections oily.

[Tubajug]

+1 for Ultra-pure lamp oil…..works great for me, and when using it liberally while building instruments, it’s MUCH easier on the wallet.

What do you use it for when building instruments?

[Dan Schultz]

I just replenished my stock of Ultra-Pure Lamp Oil.

[Yorkboy]

+1 for Ultra-pure lamp oil…..works great for me, and when using it liberally while building instruments, it’s MUCH easier on the wallet.

What do you use it for when building instruments?

Just for cleaning and oiling valves while building valve circuits (to make sure there’s no tension on the casings), cleaning gunk out of the ports and valve knuckles, and lapping in slides, stuff like that.

[bloke]

When I am soldering, I’m rarely near the sink - where the liquid detergent is. However, lamp oil is usually nearby. Once things cool down, I’m looking for just about anything to neutralize the acid on the surface of an instrument. I’ll often grab a dirty paper towel, pour a little bit of oil on it and go around the area where the solder joint was just completed...along with all the purposes that Yorkboy just outlined.
...yes: dirty.
Clean ones are neither green, and nor are they green...
...and a small amount of it on a rag really is pretty good for cleaning filth off of the outsides of instrument cases.

[bloke]

It’s delivered and here.

[royjohn]

Not needing a gallon, I looked for UltraPure at Amazon...the clear was $17.99, but the red was $11.67! Not wanting red water on the floor, I instead opted for Hyoola at $13.89. It seems odorless...made by a company in Bayonne, NJ which mainly deals in candles.

[bloke]

This thread content continues to be bumped.
Here is the thing about odor:
If you buy it off of a store shelf, it may have been sitting there a year or two years or three years… They’re not going to cycle it out, because it’s not food. By that time, it’s going to develop an annoying odor (in much the way that gasoline develops a rancid odor, when old), but when you buy it online, it’s almost always recently manufactured and (thus) is odorless.

[donn]

Has anyone noticed this happening to their stash of lamp oil? Starts out odorless, changes to stinky after a couple years?

[tofu]

.

[the elephant]

To all:

Please note that "low odor" is not "odorless". They are actually quite different. The smell has something to do with the refinement level, and odorless tends to stay that way as it is purer. Low odor stuff will eventually start to reek if it did not already reek when it was new.

The Lamplight brand ODORLESS "Ultra Pure" oil seems to be the most consistent and inexpensive.

Low Odor is still very smelly stuff, and it is easy to grab that stuff by mistake when you are in a hurry.

[hup_d_dup]

I use lots of lamp oil, on the valves and inside the tubing. There is a downside: lots of oil going IN means lots of oil coming OUT. You have to be careful about where it is going. If you dump oil onto a dark stage floor it can be hard to see. People aren’t looking for it and it is slippery.

Hup