Good, low-odor, non-toxic oils for tools

[THDplusN_bad]

Good Day,

my recommendation is https://ballistol.com/. It preserves surfaces and is used by the military to protect metal surfaces long-term; non-toxic, many applications.

Cheers,

THDplusN_bad

[bc888]

Sounds like the OP is fixed up. For anyone else, it's worth doing a search on "best gun oil" where yanks have spent a lot of time and effort to do home evaluation/comparisons. Some may want high lubricity, some safety, some rust resistance (for coastal dwellers). Observe the photo below:




Link to methodology for this one, https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=546316
 but there is a lot of this out there. Do a search and look at images. As an aside, Ballistol is one of the very worst performers.

[SilverSolder]

That's an amazing amount of work that someone put into testing!

[Humanoid]

So much work. So much data. Love it! 

[Technomaniac]

Everyone should try CANOLA OIL as a cutting lubricant on hacksaws and panel saws - makes cutting a BREEZE !

[thm_w]

Good Day,

my recommendation is https://ballistol.com/. It preserves surfaces and is used by the military to protect metal surfaces long-term; non-toxic, many applications.

Not applicable here, stuff stinks, they add some kind of perfume to it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

[Humanoid]

Everyone should try CANOLA OIL as a cutting lubricant on hacksaws and panel saws - makes cutting a BREEZE !

My grandfather used to grease his sliding patio door with olive oil Probably not the best, but cooking oils can work in a pinch. Never tried it on a saw, but I think most oils would help more than nothing on a blade. It's been raining here a lot, so I'm gonna try that mineral oil I bought on some sliding doors once everything dries and I clean out the track.

I used coconut oil on some old, dry, wooden box recently. It soaked it right up, darkened the wood slightly and made the grain pop, and even made the wood less brittle. It can coagulate in corners though since it's solid at room temp. I actually need to go check it because it's been sitting for several days... Not sure about using it on tools since it solidifies so easily and I don't know all the compounds that are in it. It might might leave a film or just make my whole room smell like coconut, which I would not like.

Not applicable here, stuff stinks, they add some kind of perfume to it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

No good.

The other problem with Ballistol (for my needs) is that it only seems to come in spray cans and as a box of wipes. You can't just buy the liquid. The last thing I want is perfumed oil getting onto, into or even near my equipment. The smell of 3-in-one was bad enough. Luckily that mineral oil i found has no smell at all.

[cdev]

Teflon is an endocrine disruptor.

About some of the other suggestions: I would not suggest eating anything with PTFE in it. You should understand that NSF grade does not mean it is approved in food, just that it can be used in food processing plants. Methanol is NSF grade!

PTFE (aka Teflon) is about as inert as it gets, if you swallow it it'll come out the other end of your body unaffected... Wouldn't recommend eating plastic, but it won't kill you (maybe apart from constipation if the piece gets stuck).

@Humanoid: I wouldn't blindly trust the warnings on SDS sheets, especially in the states they are just a wee bit too dramatic about substances that aren't that toxic. Just take the SDS of sand as an example... https://fscimage.fishersci.com/msds/09890.htm

The oils you listed as toxic have that classification because they consist of refined crude oil-> they contain all sorts of aromatic compounds that might or might not be toxic, so they just use the "fatal if swallowed" label to be on the safe side. If you want something that isn't toxic (allthough it can and will burn) go for medical grade liquid parrafin oil, the manufacturer has to prove that it doesn't contain any aromatics and that it is safe to drink(!!). A bit more expensive though, but definitely not toxic. You should go for the USP or NF grade stuff as drugs that have this label are certified to be pure.

Sidenote about parrafin oil: It's a PITA to remove it, it especially likes glassware and will produce some nice traces that either need lots of scrubbing or acetone...

[Cerebus]

Teflon is an endocrine disruptor.

Please knock off the uninformed conspiracy theory style rubbish, I'm really, really sick of hearing it spouted on here. Especially when it is baldly stated as fact when it fact is a lie.

Teflon is PTFE, Poly-Tetra-Flouro-Ethane, one of the most inert, non chemically or biochemically reactive substances that most people will encounter. It is NOT an endocrine disruptor because there's no way in hell that it will react with any of the biochemicals in the endocrine systems of fish, foul or even bloody fairies.

Chemicals used in making it may be endocrine dispuptors, heck several of them are pure and simple lethal, but chemicals used in the manufacture of many things will disrupt all sorts of biological systems. From the ioscyanates used in making everything from plastic foam to car paint being highly potent respiratory irritants for anything with lungs, to the cyanide used in gold plating killing you dead in seconds there are many chemicals used in the manufacture of things that are harmful. That does not mean that the end products are harmful - the worst results from licking cured car paint or a gold plated ring are a dusty mouth and the taste of gross, unwashed hands respectively.

This place is supposed to the the haunt of scientists and engineers, not mutterers of chem-trail conspiracies and the like that belong in the dark ages along with the freaking Witchfinder General.

[0culus]

Not applicable here, stuff stinks, they add some kind of perfume to it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

No good.

The other problem with Ballistol (for my needs) is that it only seems to come in spray cans and as a box of wipes. You can't just buy the liquid. The last thing I want is perfumed oil getting onto, into or even near my equipment. The smell of 3-in-one was bad enough. Luckily that mineral oil i found has no smell at all.

I have a regular can of it, that I use to fill up a pocket size oiler from time to time when I need it. The smell doesn't stick around like a lot of other lubricants and it works great.

[helius]

Teflon is PTFE, Poly-Tetra-Flouro-Ethane

poly-(tetrafluoroethylene). The monomer is required to be unsaturated in order to form the bonds that make the polymer. And flour is not involved.

Biocompatibility needs to be understood in the context of material handling and how it gets used. For example, PTFE treated non-stick cookware should not be heated above 500 °F or toxic byproducts can be released. That temperature isn't hard to reach at all on a gas range. For small molecules, inertness isn't an unalloyed blessing: being biochemically inert (no breakdown pathway) is a prerequisite for bioaccumulation. Carbon nanotubes are both inert and carcinogenic.

[jogri]

Teflon is an endocrine disruptor.

Please knock off the uninformed conspiracy theory style rubbish, I'm really, really sick of hearing it spouted on here. Especially when it is baldly stated as fact when it fact is a lie.

Well, you could say that he has a point if he is talking about really old Teflon products as a whole and is using the word "Teflon" to describe the plastic with all its catalysts etc and not just PTFE...  Plastics based on PTFE used to contain perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and that stuff is indeed a endocrine disruptor. Would you experience a measurable increase in your PFOA levels by eating chunks of old Teflon? Probably not as most of it gets recycled in the manufacturing process and the rest of it is trapped in the plastic. A few molecules that happen to be on the surface might get loose and enter your system, but i doubt that this is measurable if you don't chew on Teflon for extended periods of time.
The main way people get exposed to PFOA is via waste water from plants manufacturing Teflon, as you needed to run the reaction as a emulsion in water (PTFE is just not soluble in anything [maybe except liquid lithium], so you need some sort of tensid to get it going (exact same process of washing oil/grease of with soap, except the oil is your (P)-TFE and the soap is PFOA).)

For small molecules, inertness isn't an unalloyed blessing: being biochemically inert (no breakdown pathway) is a prerequisite for bioaccumulation. Carbon nanotubes are both inert and carcinogenic.

I'd use Asbestos as an example: Completely inert, but it manages to provoke a chronic inflammatory reaction that can lead to cancer.

[Cerebus]

Teflon is PTFE, Poly-Tetra-Flouro-Ethane

poly-(tetrafluoroethylene). The monomer is required to be unsaturated in order to form the bonds that make the polymer. And flour is not involved.

Typos don't invalidate the point.

Biocompatibility needs to be understood in the context of material handling and how it gets used. For example, PTFE treated non-stick cookware should not be heated above 500 °F or toxic byproducts can be released. That temperature isn't hard to reach at all on a gas range. For small molecules, inertness isn't an unalloyed blessing: being biochemically inert (no breakdown pathway) is a prerequisite for bioaccumulation. Carbon nanotubes are both inert and carcinogenic.

The original context was food grade lubricants that contains PTFE, not non-stick pans, or the breakdown products at high temperature. The original quote was "Teflon is an endocrine disruptor", baldly, no qualifiers, no mention of breakdown products at high temperature. As for biocompatibility, PTFE is highly biocompatible at normal temperatures, it gets used in medical implants precisely because of that, it's even used as a coating on implants to passivate things that are less biocompatible. Uses include: repairing vocal cord defects, arterial grafts, orthopaedic joint implants, reconstructive facial plastic surgery, stents and replacement heart valves. The toxicity of other things, small molecules or not, is not in question.

Cdev has a habit of promulgating left field, scientifically unsupported, conspiracy theory style misinformation. i.e. The implicit idea here that PTFE is dangerous to you, when it is not. He appears to be a nice, well intentioned guy, but he just keeps on posting this irrational stuff. If you go and support the idea, by extrapolating from normal conditions to construct some set of conditions where it could be dangerous you're just encouraging the spread of disinformation. Heck, if you're really unlucky he might regard you as a fellow traveller and start privately sharing his insights into economic theory with you - that should be discouragement enough alone.

[helius]

The main way people get exposed to PFOA is via waste water from plants manufacturing Teflon, as you needed to run the reaction as a emulsion in water (PTFE is just not soluble in anything [maybe except liquid lithium], so you need some sort of tensid to get it going (exact same process of washing oil/grease of with soap, except the oil is your (P)-TFE and the soap is PFOA).)

PFOA itself also was widely used in fire-fighting foams, including the foams used on military airbases that got used in regular fire drills. Those areas are contaminated as a result.

[Humanoid]

Not applicable here, stuff stinks, they add some kind of perfume to it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

No good.

The other problem with Ballistol (for my needs) is that it only seems to come in spray cans and as a box of wipes. You can't just buy the liquid. The last thing I want is perfumed oil getting onto, into or even near my equipment. The smell of 3-in-one was bad enough. Luckily that mineral oil i found has no smell at all.

I have a regular can of it, that I use to fill up a pocket size oiler from time to time when I need it. The smell doesn't stick around like a lot of other lubricants and it works great.

Curious where you found it. I didn't see cans of it anywhere I looked. Maybe where I live they just sell the spray and wipes.

[thermistor-guy]

Maybe i will sound weird, but, vaseline lotion without parfums seems almost pure petroleum jelly. Never tried to use to lubricate tools, but saw such advices over internet.
Any professional opinion on it?

Vaseline, in it's various forms is excellent for improving and protecting brass terminals and preventing their threads from galling and seizing. When it comes to its lubricating film strength in higher stress applications (tool pivots and vise screws etc.), I have no clue - I don't know if such data would be available.

I have used vaseline on threads and O-rings, in brass plumbing fixtures at home, for years. Seems ok.

I use sewing machine oil on paper shredder blades.

Just noticed that my storeroom has some liquid paraffin that is advertised as a laxative, so it is safe for skin contact and accidental ingestion. Given OP's stated health issues, OP might like to get some paraffin (or vaseline) from a pharmacy, and try it on some tools.

To oil and recondition riggers' gloves, I use Sorbolene. Again, safe for skin contact. OP might find some industrial uses for it.

[0culus]

Not applicable here, stuff stinks, they add some kind of perfume to it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistol

No good.

The other problem with Ballistol (for my needs) is that it only seems to come in spray cans and as a box of wipes. You can't just buy the liquid. The last thing I want is perfumed oil getting onto, into or even near my equipment. The smell of 3-in-one was bad enough. Luckily that mineral oil i found has no smell at all.

I have a regular can of it, that I use to fill up a pocket size oiler from time to time when I need it. The smell doesn't stick around like a lot of other lubricants and it works great.

Curious where you found it. I didn't see cans of it anywhere I looked. Maybe where I live they just sell the spray and wipes.

I ordered mine from amazon dot con: https://www.amazon.com/Ballistol-Multi-Purpose-Lubricant-Non-Aerosol-Trigger/dp/B001O2L80E/

[Humanoid]

I ordered mine from amazon dot con: https://www.amazon.com/Ballistol-Multi-Purpose-Lubricant-Non-Aerosol-Trigger/dp/B001O2L80E/

Oh for god's sake. I thought that was a spray can  lol

[coppercone2]

3 in 1 is a cleaning oil, I don't think you will get similar quality performance with anything else. I suggest a maintenance schedule and to apply on top of a rack with a brush in the sink, let it drain, then wipe down once.

I don't think you are going to save much on gloves. You should use them anyway when you are cleaning a tool because the metal itself is toxic (metal oxides always form and come off)........ unless the oil is coming off absolutely clear........ its toxic.......

[jogri]

I don't think you are going to save much on gloves. You should use them anyway when you are cleaning a tool because the metal itself is toxic (metal oxides always form and come off)........ unless the oil is coming off absolutely clear........ its toxic.......

Yes, metal oxides always form but it's rather rare for them to come off again: Iron does this, but most of the other metals (aluminum, zinc, chromium, copper, magnesium, etc) don't. They will form a protective oxide layer on top of the metal when they are exposed to air, but this layer sticks securely to the metal and doesn't come off again. Even if you somehow get rid of this oxide layer (and that isn't easy and requires a LOT of heavy scrubbing), chance are that it'll form a new one in minutes. Iron is one of the rare cases where the oxide layer doesn't stick to the metal-> it comes off, new fresh iron gets exposed->rusts-> loss of material as rust is constantly falling off.

So basically you are touching a metal oxide every time you touch a "metal"... Is the oxide toxic? Depends on how you define toxicity in this context: Almost all oxides are insoluble in water and fats, so just touching it won't dissolve it. But: Most of them will dissolve in acids, so if you manage to swallow it the metal oxide can dissolve in your stomach and may give you you a heavy metal poisoning.

Should you use gloves? I'd say this is overkill as long as you wash your hands after handling it. Another problem with gloves is that people tend to enter a "Ha, i have gloves, i can touch everything now" state where they'll first touch something that you shouldn't touch with bare hands and follow it up by scratching their nose/using the phone/using doorhandles etc... Grats, you now have something you didn't want to touch in the first place on objects you touch all the time without even realizing that it is there.

[0culus]

I ordered mine from amazon dot con: https://www.amazon.com/Ballistol-Multi-Purpose-Lubricant-Non-Aerosol-Trigger/dp/B001O2L80E/

Oh for god's sake. I thought that was a spray can  lol

LOL! It is a bit confusing, but when adding to your cart just choose the "single with no sprayer" option to just get a plain ol' can with no aerosol and no spray. 

[0culus]

I don't think you are going to save much on gloves. You should use them anyway when you are cleaning a tool because the metal itself is toxic (metal oxides always form and come off)........ unless the oil is coming off absolutely clear........ its toxic.......

Yes, metal oxides always form but it's rather rare for them to come off again: Iron does this, but most of the other metals (aluminum, zinc, chromium, copper, magnesium, etc) don't. They will form a protective oxide layer on top of the metal when they are exposed to air, but this layer sticks securely to the metal and doesn't come off again. Even if you somehow get rid of this oxide layer (and that isn't easy and requires a LOT of heavy scrubbing), chance are that it'll form a new one in minutes. Iron is one of the rare cases where the oxide layer doesn't stick to the metal-> it comes off, new fresh iron gets exposed->rusts-> loss of material as rust is constantly falling off.

So basically you are touching a metal oxide every time you touch a "metal"... Is the oxide toxic? Depends on how you define toxicity in this context: Almost all oxides are insoluble in water and fats, so just touching it won't dissolve it. But: Most of them will dissolve in acids, so if you manage to swallow it the metal oxide can dissolve in your stomach and may give you you a heavy metal poisoning.

Should you use gloves? I'd say this is overkill as long as you wash your hands after handling it. Another problem with gloves is that people tend to enter a "Ha, i have gloves, i can touch everything now" state where they'll first touch something that you shouldn't touch with bare hands and follow it up by scratching their nose/using the phone/using doorhandles etc... Grats, you now have something you didn't want to touch in the first place on objects you touch all the time without even realizing that it is there.

Emphasis mine. This process is called passivation. As you point out, iron does not passivate, but many other common metals do. Passivation layers can be easily overcome by judicious application of high concentrations of the correct strong acid. There are metals like ruthenium that are invulnerable to attack with even aqua regia, but you won't run into those outside of an inorganic chemistry lab for the most part. Ruthenium, interestingly, despite it's complete invulnerability to the nastiest acids and acid mixtures, can be dissolved in sodium hypochlorite!

[coppercone2]

unless you are using surgical tools you will have oxides to deal with. Surgical metal tools are designed to do exactly what you want them to do.. .but they are not appropriate for most electronics work (you will find a few particular tools useful). You also need a high polish before you can work in that cleanness regime Those will have a professional full non rusting surface.. but those surfaces do not last with metal on metal contact.

The only similar thing I saw is some jewelry tools that have nylon inserts. And tweezers, but you will not find most other tools that stay that shiny and nice and clean. Closest things i have seen are the knipex electroformed tools.. they might not get too dirty

i.e. the third one on this list
https://www.knipex.com/index.php?id=1216&L=1&page=group_detail&parentID=1371&groupID=2730&artID=35712

stuff that looks bright and shiny like that to begin with is your best bet for oil staying clean

[cdev]

I have a small container of a very light (clear) machine oil and my container has been going strong for years because I use very little of it. It doesnt smell. Its probably mineral oil.

As far as teflon lubricants, I simply dont know.

Teflon insulation on wiring? If it gets hot, I just don't know. teflon cookware should be avoided by anybody who keeps birds as pets, definitely.

The main issue for me would probably be heat, there I know it can be unsafe if it gets too hot.

Its used inside the body in medical devices, and its generally considered to be safe in that setting.

Its complicated. Look at pubmed to get a wider idea of what issues are involved.

[helius]

Iron oxide is an ingredient in Wheaties and aluminum oxide is an approved food coloring. I don't think you really have to be concerned with "toxic metal oxides" unless you are handling lead or cadmium plated parts, which most tools are not.