Talk:Grease (lubricant)
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"Some rendered animal fats are known as greases. Rendered chicken fat becomes the commodity known as yellow grease. Animal greases may have been used as lubricants in the past, but this is not now common in developed nations."
Every dictionary I've looked in has animal fat as the first definition of grease, and it seems to be the etymology of the word. Wikipedia isn't a dictionary, but is it odd to devote the entire article to what is technically a secondary meaning of the word?
- Concur with anon editor, and have clarified intro. --TheEditrix2 07:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
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[edit] rust
Isn't grease also applied to prevent rusting (by keeping water off/out)? Rvollmert 11:39, 2004 Jul 31 (UTC)
It can be, but that is a secondary effect--generally you only have exposed, unpainted metals if you have external moving parts, like bike chains. Some greases are not water resistant, it depends on the type of emulsifier used. Since the emulsifiers tend to be soaps, if they do dissolve in water, they can actually help to remove the residual oils... Heavier oils are more often used as a protectant for non-painted metal surfaces (like blued steel in firearms), but they tend to rub off, thus losing their protective abilities and likely staining surfaces they contact. Greases can be used, but suffer the same disadvantages as oils. Waxes are my own preferred treatment for firearms, since wax isn't as slippery (don't want to drop a loaded gun) and it doesn't rub off. There is a company that I ran across that sells a mix of soap base, wax, and dry lubricant--sort of a solid EP grease--that they promote for use with bike chains. The solid nature of the final product keeps it from collecting dust and grit, and turning into what is effectively a grinding compound. scot 17:26, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Music vs. Lubricant
Does anyone else think that the musical should occupy this page and the lubricant the disambiguation? Dmn / Դմն 21:42, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Page split
Unless there's an objection, I'm going to move the lubricant content to grease (lubricant) and leave this page with just the disambiguation content. scot 02:37, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Shear thinning vs. melting
This statement: "Grease-lubricated bearings have greater frictional characteristics at the beginning of operation, causing a temperature rise which tends to melt the grease and give the effect of an oil-lubricated bearing" seems to contradict this one: "Lithium based grease has a drip temperature at 350° to 400°F". If friction induced temperature rise is the root cause of the shear thinning effects of grease, then it would have to run at >400F to lubricate well, which is obviously not the case for oil/soap greases, thought it may apply to petroleum jelly and similar room temp solid oils. I'm going to take out the bit about temperature rise causing the thinning, since it obviously doesn't apply to most greases. The actual mechanism has, I beleive, something to do with the polar/nonpolar mix, and pseudo-crystalline arrangesments formed when the fluid is at rest. scot 18:26, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
