Too much Red & Tacky??

[Marc Sova]

How much red & tacky grease is too much? I know a lot of you use that, and a lot of others just plain brown(?) axle grease (which, I’m never sure exactly what that is….seems everything on the shelf is some form of synthetic grease). 
   I notice if I put more than just a coating or red and tacky on the teeth, like if I sort of fill it pretty well, it’s almost like there a viscous sort of drag. In other words….it doesn’t seem like it sound as freely as before I put grease in it. Make sense? Not sure what the proper word is. 
   Is just a minimal coating plenty???????

[Tony Clayton]

I fill it full with the common brown stuff. The red stuff does exactly what it's designed for stick to surfaces. I think it creates drag.

[Marc Sova]

1 hour ago, Tony Clayton said:

I fill it full with the common brown stuff. The red stuff does exactly what it's designed for stick to surfaces. I think it creates drag.

Yeah…..it feels like it. Think I’m gonna switch. Thanks. 

[Bill Dunlap]

I use silicone lubricating grease called Super Lube which doubles as dielectric grease. It can be used sparingly as it has metal cling similar to automotive sythetic oils. Also, it does not dry up, or bleed out oil like other greases. I've also switched to their sythetic machine oil which has the same properties. Ideal for rarely run machines like ours. I noticed immediately an increase in rpms on fans I use it on. Can be found in many different viscosities.

[Marc Sova]

11 hours ago, Bill Dunlap said:

I use silicone lubricating grease called Super Lube which doubles as dielectric grease. It can be used sparingly as it has metal cling similar to automotive sythetic oils. Also, it does not dry up, or bleed out oil like other greases. I've also switched to their sythetic machine oil which has the same properties. Ideal for rarely run machines like ours. I noticed immediately an increase in rpms on fans I use it on. Can be found in many different viscosities.

Yeah but that “metal cling” aspect is what I’m thinking I don’t like about the red & tacky. Maybe the trick is to use it very sparingly as you say…in essence just coat the teeth. I just know that if I almost fill the box 2/3 it doesn’t spin nearly as freely as it does when I first assemble it after thorough cleaning. I’ll look into that though. Maybe it’s different than red and tacky. Thanks Bill

Edited February 11 by Marc Sova

[Marc Sova]

Ok really no substantial difference with the gearbox in versus off….im sure it would be about the same with any grease frankly. So, im not gonna sweat it and swap the red and tacky for wheel bearing grease or super lube like I was pondering. 
 

 

[Thomas Newcity]

I've used the Red-n-Tacky for the simple reason that it is tacky and designed for open face gears.  I also use only as much as needed to load the gear teeth and shaft sockets.  Loading the gear housing with grease is unnecessary, as the excess grease never touches the gears again.  

Using silicon products has always concerned me because of its absorption in metals and difficulty to remove for paint prepping.  But still an interesting idea.  

Just my humble opinion.  

[John McComas]

Unless you want to churn butter, do NOT FILL the oscillator housing!  The only place you should put Red & Tacky is on the gear teeth.

The highest friction comes from sliding teeth on the gears.  The most friction is with the worm gear on the motor shaft and its contact

with the bull gear on the gear train.  I use a small brush to get the grease into the lands on the gears.

Happy Greasin'

[Marc Sova]

3 hours ago, Thomas Newcity said:

I've used the Red-n-Tacky for the simple reason that it is tacky and designed for open face gears.  I also use only as much as needed to load the gear teeth and shaft sockets.  Loading the gear housing with grease is unnecessary, as the excess grease never touches the gears again.  

Using silicon products has always concerned me because of its absorption in metals and difficulty to remove for paint prepping.  But still an interesting idea.  

Just my humble opinion.  

On I terstonb bait the paint concern. Yeah….as a professional painter/decorator, I know silicone caulk is the bane of our existence lol 

    Fwiw….so do collectors just not run the older stuff unless they’re on a variac? This 21648….the couple times I’ve rolled the variac up from 110 to 120v it’s pulling like 120 watts (110 on the motor tag) and 1.8-1.9 amps. At 110v it’s right at 100 watts and 1.65 amps. 

Edited February 16 by Marc Sova

[Marc Sova]

1 hour ago, John McComas said:

Unless you want to churn butter, do NOT FILL the oscillator housing!  The only place you should put Red & Tacky is on the gear teeth.

The highest friction comes from sliding teeth on the gears.  The most friction is with the worm gear on the motor shaft and its contact

with the bull gear on the gear train.  I use a small brush to get the grease into the lands on the gears.

Happy Greasin'

Ok cool. Yeh I think I sticking with it for now. I know the one place I DONT put it is UNDER the big gear other than a tiny bit at the fiber washer there. Early on on one of my first gearboxes I did a few years ago I know I loaded that flat area up with it and there was almost a suction type of drag. 
   No substantial drop in amps with the gearbox off as evidenced in the video above so I’m not too worried about it. 

[Paul Carmody]

Super lube also has a synthetic that's not silicone. I've used both.Also Red and Tacky,bearing grease and with Westinghouse fans I use Cornhead EP-0.Like Bill,I use a synthetic oil.Silicone does soak in metal.When Armour All first  came out I was working in my cousins body shop and he was having fisheye problems. I go through a rigorous cleaning process before painting anything. 

 

Edited February 17 by Paul Carmody

[Chris Campbell]

I think Russ uses bacon grease. 

[Patrick Ray]

I use Amsoil synthetic bearing and chassis grease. Don't need more than enough to coat the gears. Won't sling off. Great load resistance. 

[Marc Sova]

6 hours ago, Paul Carmody said:

Super lube also has a synthetic that's not silicone. I've used both.Also Red and Tacky,bearing grease and with Westinghouse fans I use Cornhead EP-0.Like Bill,I use a synthetic oil.Silicone does soak in metal.When Armour All first  came out I was working in my cousins body shop and he was having fisheye problems. I go through a rigorous cleaning process before painting anything. 

 

Yeah I thought the super lube was only the synthetic. Didn’t realize.e there was a silicone variant. 

[Paul Carmody]

On 2/16/2025 at 3:17 PM, Marc Sova said:

On I terstonb bait the paint concern. Yeah….as a professional painter/decorator, I know silicone caulk is the bane of our existence lol 

    Fwiw….so do collectors just not run the older stuff unless they’re on a variac? This 21648….the couple times I’ve rolled the variac up from 110 to 120v it’s pulling like 120 watts (110 on the motor tag) and 1.8-1.9 amps. At 110v it’s right at 100 watts and 1.65 amps. 

I sleep with mine running.I really don't have any fans in running order with amps that high.The most out of a 16" has been around 1.25 amps.at around 124v I'm sure less if dropped them back to 110v.I don't think I have one exactly like your model so I can't say on that.The ones I slowed down I just use a triac fan speed controller wired in line set on 110v.The 12"fans I run regular I just run on house current in low.They are Westinghouse.A tank and a centrifugal 6 blade.They run cool as a cucumber 🥒 

Edited February 18 by Paul Carmody

[Paul Carmody]

So out of curiosity I pulled out this big motor 16' Emerson to see the amps.I haven't done anything to this fan its raw.The 1.04 amps is low and 1.50 high.As it warms up the Amps are getting lower.

The watts low 65.3 mid 74.9 w high 104w .122v .Guess I should have said the highest Amp on a 16" Westinghouse before.

 

 

 

Edited February 19 by Paul Carmody

[Marc Sova]

4 hours ago, Paul Carmody said:

So out of curiosity I pulled out this big motor 16' Emerson to see the amps.I haven't done anything to this fan its raw.The 1.04 amps is low and 1.50 high.As it warms up the Amps are getting lower.

The watts low 65.3 mid 74.9 w high 104w .122v .Guess I should have said the highest Amp on a 16" Westinghouse before.

I

 

 

So the 1.5a on high on the Emerson…,at what voltage? When temporarily wired in the switch form a 19648, on 110v on high I got 1.54 and 103-104 watts well below the 110w on the motor tag. 
   Yeah I’m def not gonna run this on straight 120 line voltage….th couple times I’ve don’t that for about a minute the amps were too high for comfort. (1.9ish and watts were like 121 or 125!) 

[Paul Carmody]

It was at 122v.

[Marc Sova]

7 hours ago, Paul Carmody said:

It was at 122v.

Oh….just noticing the fan. It’s a big six wing. 29668 or 73668???? Even though a big motor, it is six pole versus four pole for the 21648. So they run a bit slower and less amps. My 29668 runs at about 1.5 in 120v. So…not really a a just comparison as I learned from mark olson’s comment on my post about it which I’ll link below.
   Circling back to the grease though….in my comment above with the YouTube video you can see I didn’t notice much difference at all with the  gearbox removed. But…I do notice a slight increase in amps (from like 1.65 to 1.68 or 1.69) and watts (from 110 to about 113) when oscillating  obviously a more load translates to more amp/watts. I may still try swapping the grease and see if there’s a difference but probably won’t  

 

 

 

[Paul Carmody]

I wasn't really trying to compare exactly.I was just curious what the big Emersons run.Altough different the readings were very similar. I have a small motor 16" but it's tore down now.Wait?I have another that runs stashed. Its a later model than yours ,but  I will check out of curiosity. 

[Nicholas Denney]

The goal of gear lubrication is to keep the contact surfaces lubricated, while at the same time minimizing fluid resistance... this means not clogging a gearbox with sticky grease. If you are using a sticky grease, only use enough to coat the gear teeth. More than that is too much. If you're using a non-clinging grease, fill the gearbox to the lower surface of the gears. 

You also have to consider the tolerance of the gears and the film thickness of the grease. Closer-fitting gears shouldn't use a heavy grease because it won't work effectively... the gears will effectively be compressing the lubricant between their teeth when they mesh. The same principle applies to internal combustion engines; lower tolerance construction demands a lighter weight oil. 

While all this may seem trivial and overkill for the relatively simple and crude gears in an oscillator, consider that we are looking to get decades and centuries of performance out of them!

As an engineer, I work on massive machinery that uses more specialized lubricants than the average cookie recipe has ingredients... that's what it takes to get hundreds of thousands of hours of run time out of these machines without extensive overhauls. 

[Marc Sova]

17 hours ago, Nicholas Denney said:

The goal of gear lubrication is to keep the contact surfaces lubricated, while at the same time minimizing fluid resistance... this means not clogging a gearbox with sticky grease. If you are using a sticky grease, only use enough to coat the gear teeth. More than that is too much. If you're using a non-clinging grease, fill the gearbox to the lower surface of the gears. 

You also have to consider the tolerance of the gears and the film thickness of the grease. Closer-fitting gears shouldn't use a heavy grease because it won't work effectively... the gears will effectively be compressing the lubricant between their teeth when they mesh. The same principle applies to internal combustion engines; lower tolerance construction demands a lighter weight oil. 

While all this may seem trivial and overkill for the relatively simple and crude gears in an oscillator, consider that we are looking to get decades and centuries of performance out of them!

As an engineer, I work on massive machinery that uses more specialized lubricants than the average cookie recipe has ingredients... that's what it takes to get hundreds of thousands of hours of run time out of these machines without extensive overhauls. 

Great explanation. Thank you. Did you mean to say lower tolerance construction requires a heavier weight oil? 

[Todd Adornato]

2 hours ago, Marc Sova said:

Great explanation. Thank you. Did you mean to say lower tolerance construction requires a heavier weight oil? 

 

Lower tolerance means a tighter fit, so lighter weight lubricants are the order of the day. 

[Russ Huber]

On 2/17/2025 at 2:09 PM, Chris Campbell said:

I think Russ uses bacon grease. 

As time has gone on, I have kind of fell in agreement with Stan Adams use of common bearing grease. The greases we have today far surpass the goop they were using back then just to put it simply. I believe the tackier the better. I have witnessed this tacky feature on more than one grease. I have used Amsoil synthetic marine grease which is tacky. It is designed to stand up to not only high torque but moisture. That is a hell of a lot more than a silly little fan motor gearbox has to deal with. On top of that how many of these restored fans are running 24/7? 🙂

[Marc Sova]

5 hours ago, Russ Huber said:

As time has gone on, I have kind of fell in agreement with Stan Adams use of common bearing grease. The greases we have today far surpass the goop they were using back then just to put it simply. I believe the tackier the better. I have witnessed this tacky feature on more than one grease. I have used Amsoil synthetic marine grease which is tacky. It is designed to stand up to not only high torque but moisture. That is a hell of a lot more than a silly little fan motor gearbox has to deal with. On top of that how many of these restored fans are running 24/7? 🙂

Well wait a minute…you’re saying you agree with Stan on good ol bearing grease. But then seem to be lauding the “tacky” stuff. I don’t think of bearing grease as being tacky like red and tacky. Unless you’re saying a tackier version of bearing grease? Sorry….just trying to make sure I’m grasping this correctly. Thanks.