Lube!! BSA PART #17106

[kb9vzd]

BSA PART #17106 DRY WHITE Teflon with cling.

Has anyone else had to use this type lube for local and district cub scout PWD. What is everyone's thoughts on this #@*&!

[TAL]

I have never been forced to use that lube ,but I have tested it before...

If you are having to use it, just hope everybody else in the same race is to...

What little bit I found out about it was that Johnson and Johnson baby powder is just as good if not better...

[Stan Pope]

Cory reported a few years ago that the teflon lube (BSA's White Stuff) worked better after it was washed off. Apparently left of good slick film. Don't recall how it compared to graphite at that point, though. My impression was "okay."

[MaxV]

My recommendation is "Do not use unless you are forced to". In my tests, cars with no lubrication ran faster than cars lubed with the dry lube. It is significantly inferior to graphite.

If you must use it. Just use a light dusting, and remove all excess.

[sporty]

I still have a tube of that stuff.


Like the others mentions, it's not very good. I actually feel that it creates drag, not reduce it.

I like hodges graphite mix. But others have there prefered choice also.


Now on my sons soap box car. we use tri-flow with teflon, and then wipe it off and it works pretty good.

I mention this only as a option if forced to use BSA lube, then use something that appears not to be on there.

Sporty

[Cory]

Cory reported a few years ago that the teflon lube (BSA's White Stuff) worked better after it was washed off. Apparently left of good slick film. Don't recall how it compared to graphite at that point, though. My impression was "okay."

Yep. If you apply it like graphite, expect a slow car. My experience is that less is more with teflon.

This was learned from one of by kid's science experiments a few years back. The sequence of events was something like this:

1. Recorded unlubed baseleine times (slow)
2. Recorded graphite times (fast)
3. Washed off graphite from axles and wheel bores
4. Recorded unlubed times to ensure return to baseline state (slow)
5. Recorded teflon times, teflon applied like graphite (slow!!!)
6. Washed off teflon
5. Recorded unlubed times to ensure return to baseline state (fast!!!)

We ended up trying several different detergents to wash off the teflon, none of which worked. After each washing, we'd time the car and it had not slowed down at all.

We tested on two different days, one of which was very humid, one of which was very clear. The teflon was faster on the humid day, slower on the clear day. The graphite/moly was Hob-E-Lube.

[Stan Pope]

Thank you for supplying the detail, Cory. An aspect that I could not recall was how the final teflon times compared to the graphite times. I don't recall hearing that comparison at the time. Is "Fast!!!" faster than "Fast"? Or slower, but unexpectedly fast?

[kb9vzd]

Thanks all, I wanted to make sure that it wasn't me just thinking the white *#@* stinks.

Our district tell's us to use it because they are trying to discourage anyone from using non-scout products.

Thanks again

Michael

[Cory]

Thank you for supplying the detail, Cory. An aspect that I could not recall was how the final teflon times compared to the graphite times. I don't recall hearing that comparison at the time. Is "Fast!!!" faster than "Fast"? Or slower, but unexpectedly fast?

The !!!'s means that we were surprised at the results. We didn't expect the teflon to be super-slow, but eventually it became visually obvious that it was "caking up" and causing added friction. The more teflon we added, the slower we ran.

Likewise, when we washed the teflon off (we thought!) with soap, we expected to attain similar slowness to the out-of-the-box axles and the graphite-washed-off axles. Exactly the opposite happened, the car became very fast -- we concluded that a thin, slick film of teflon had been left behind.

On the humid day, the optimized-by-wiping-it-off teflon was a bit faster, maybe 20 milliseconds. On the dry day, the graphite was faster by a similar amount.

We tried several "soaps" -- hand-soap, 409, toothpaste, and did not find one that removed the teflon. The second day, we used a brand new set of axles to test since we couldn't restore our first set.

I have not used NyOil, but my recollection from posts here is that it also requires proper application. I wouldn't be so fast to write off teflon.

[sporty]

I wanted to chime in again,


I know soap box derby and pine wood derby are very different.


As in previous years, soap box derby racers use to use graphite, on the axle, but it would get into the bearings on the wheels and slow it down.

That's why alot of them went to teflon.

I had a gentleman from texas come here and help me set my sons car up, as we were very green then. Really We still are, as my son only raced one event so far.

However, (TRI-FLOW) was what he used.

The application process was some what interesting.

Since it is a axle, and not smooth or nicely polished, we had to do alot to the axle, before we got to the stage of applying the teflon.


I will mention the process, as I am curious if this process was to be used on a PWD axle. what the results might be.

So, Aside from going very detailed and lengthy. Here is the brake down.

1- 400 grit wet sand.
2-600 ""
3-800 "" and so forth to 1500 grit wet sand.

Then what he did was this :

turtle wax paste, apply, then used 1500 grit sand paper (not wet) with the turtle was still on it. buffing action.

then pure polishing cloth, same process.

then the teflon, then more pure polishing cloths (wads).

He actually recommends paste turtle wax, versus like mother's polishing compound. due to the abrasives in them.

Then he put the wheel back on and spun it. He said any marks, ring lines on the axle, would mean, the process needs to be repeated.

every mark or ring line, meant friction has occurred.

So the final steps were done a few times until no ring line was seen on the axles.

This also means taking the wheel back off to see those lines !

To make a remark about graphite-

We all know, if not enough applied, it does not work very well or for very long, apply to much and you slow the wheel down.

my own conclusion is this-

both if done properly will provide good desired results.

I think it comes down to, which one the person is more able to do easier or better out of the two.


I think BSA is trying to push there products, which I think is fine, if they could assure everyone is using them ! If also they were better or equal to what else is out there.


Sporty

[scyank]

I have a question, what if you put the teflon on and then wipe off, would adding graphite and/or moly afterwards give an advatage over just graphite and/or moly?

[Go Bubba Go]

We had our "test and tune" Friday night, and one of the parents approached me about his son's car that was really struggling it's way down the track.

I asked about weight and then about what lubricant he used. He indicated that he was using the "Teflon from the Scout Shop". I asked if I could handle the car and I flipped it over and hand spun what were the slowest wheels I had ever seen, even worse than out of the box unlubed.

Fortunately he had not glued his axles in, and we (I demonstrated one, Dad did the rest) were able to remove them, clean off all the excess teflon from the axles and wheels and relube with graphite. VERY much improved.

It may be that when applied in accordance with the procedure described by Cory above that Teflon is OK (still inferior to graphite in a dry climate, like January in Illinois, if I understand him correctly), but it is VERY unforgiving when even moderately overapplied.

Two thumbs down from Bubba (at least for inexperienced users) on the Teflon Don't know enough to throw it out altogether, but not happy to see such an unforgiving product being sold to unsuspecting scouts...

p.s. the car in question ended up in the top half of the pack

[doct1010]

Tried it (teflon) as a bore polish in a paste form, cleaned bore with denatured alcohol, seemed to do a good job very close to toothpaste under magnification. NEVER used it as a lube.

[Cory]

It may be that when applied in accordance with the procedure described by Cory above that Teflon is OK (still inferior to graphite in a dry climate, like January in Illinois, if I understand him correctly), but it is VERY unforgiving when even moderately overapplied.

GBG, I wouldn't take away too much from my comments about humidity.

Keep in mind that the axles were removed and re-inserted, not once but twice, in between the graphite and teflon tests. (Once to eradicate the graphite and ensure return to baseline status, then again to properly apply teflon.) So for this particular experiment, there was the potential for a lot more noise versus all my other experiments.

Everything else you wrote was precisely what we observed, except in our case it was serendipitous -- i.e., we pretty much stumbled & bumbled onto it.

[sprntrcr]

We had 3 cars out of 25 cars this year that used it. They finished 23, 24, & 25 overall. One was the cubmasters son who was in the top 5 last year. Afterwards, I found out he had lent out his graphite but had a tube of the teflon and used it instead. The other 2 cars didn't even make it to the finish line on their first runs. We don't allow relubing once a car is inspected, but we had to secretly add some graphite to these 3 cars so they would at least finish.

Granted they applied the teflon and didn't wipe it off as Cory suggested, but I think I would run dry before putting it on my car.