Just ordered some Nano Oil *cough snake oil cough*

[GarageBoy]

Triflow and clp used to be recommended a lot too

[Tucson Tom]

I use mineral oil. If I'm going to waste money, I'll give it to my wife and enjoy the brownie points.

Now that is pure genius!

I have had two other thoughts / suggestions to offer.

1) I buy oil in these little bottles with a long tube to squirt into the bearings on my evap cooler. It is a simple light oil, maybe SAE 10 or 20.

2) Tri-flow makes a synthetic grease that is the "grease of choice" for work on sewing machines on the few places that require grease instead of oil. It might be something to try on knife pivots.

But I am going to get one of those precision oilers and fill it with some of the non-detergent SAE 20 I have on hand.

[Halfneck]

Another user of mineral oil here. Food safe, works as a lubricant, and I can use it on the wood handles on some of my knives. I

I've also got a can of Ballistol I occasionally use. Stuff stinks though.

[DukeNiemand]

I use ballistol exclusively on all my knives and guns. It seems to be more slick than mineral oil, or other common firearm lubricants. It's cheap and it works.

[David R]

Mineral oil doesn't last for me. I've tried to move away from lube unless needed. I generally don't need a free swinging blade. Some knives seem to do fine with no lube. Reel oil is cheap and works well. KPL is good. Based a couple of comments I'll try reel grease in knives that need a tighter pivot tension.

[emanuel]

Haven't tried many. For some time now Victorinox (the maker of swiss army knives) multi tool oil. Does all I need for my folders.

That oil is by far my favorite. So sticky, and it doesn't evaporate over time. Its also food-grade as far as I remember. For the people in the USA, easiest way to get it is from Amazon. Its listed as "Swiss Army Knife Multitool Oil". Seems to be $17 for the US buyer though. Still worth the price imho.

[Wartstein]

Haven't tried many. For some time now Victorinox (the maker of swiss army knives) multi tool oil. Does all I need for my folders.

That oil is by far my favorite. So sticky, and it doesn't evaporate over time. Its also food-grade as far as I remember. For the people in the USA, easiest way to get it is from Amazon. Its listed as "Swiss Army Knife Multitool Oil". Seems to be $17 for the US buyer though. Still worth the price imho.

17 dollars, really?? That´s crazy. I get it here in Europe for 4,90 Euros, which would be 5,53 USD...
Maybe in the US you get a larger bottle? The one I always have is 10 ml (For that small quantity of oil even 4,90 Euros is quite pricey, but that´s totally irrelevant given that I get on with one tiny bottle really long. And that the Victorinox oil is, as you said, a very good choice.)

[bbturbodad]

Haven't tried many. For some time now Victorinox (the maker of swiss army knives) multi tool oil. Does all I need for my folders.

That oil is by far my favorite. So sticky, and it doesn't evaporate over time. Its also food-grade as far as I remember. For the people in the USA, easiest way to get it is from Amazon. Its listed as "Swiss Army Knife Multitool Oil". Seems to be $17 for the US buyer though. Still worth the price imho.

It's only $3 shipped direct from swissarmy.com

EDIT: Bottle appears to be half the size and doesn't have a metal needle tip.

[Filoso-]

Another user of the Victorinox oil here, very good oil for the price and safe if you use your knives for food prep... Since I tried it I don’t use any brand more...

[Evil D]

Well if I had known this would go 4 pages before I even got the stuff I would have waited until I got it. It's due to show up later this week.

[Woodpuppy]

Lol!

Well do tell us what you think after such a large dose of opinion!

[Wartstein]

Another user of the Victorinox oil here, very good oil for the price and safe if you use your knives for food prep... Since I tried it I don’t use any brand more...

Haven't tried many. For some time now Victorinox (the maker of swiss army knives) multi tool oil. Does all I need for my folders.

That oil is by far my favorite. So sticky, and it doesn't evaporate over time. Its also food-grade as far as I remember. For the people in the USA, easiest way to get it is from Amazon. Its listed as "Swiss Army Knife Multitool Oil".

Guys, it´s time Victorinox pays us some money I guess... or at least give each an SAK for free... :p :D

[vivi]

Mineral oil is something I can buy for pennies from any grocery store ot drug store around and its never felt inadequate for knife pivots. Can't imagine the extra $$ nano lube costs is worth whatever marginal performance gains it may offer.

[JD Spydo]

I use ballistol exclusively on all my knives and guns. It seems to be more slick than mineral oil, or other common firearm lubricants. It's cheap and it works.

BALLISTOL does have properties of good lubricity but I mainly like Ballistol as a cleaner, restorer and to some degree a preventative of corrosion. Ballistol is also the very best restorer and cleaner of G-10 that I've ever used. It can make even the most beat up, dried out and ravaged G-10 look virtually like new.
Like the man says Ballistol is very inexpensive>> especially when you get the 16 ounce cans of it>> don't get the aerosol cans unless you really need the convenience of them because it costs about 10 times as much using it that way. I've still got some of a 16 ounce can of Ballistol that I bought back in 2010.
Even though Ballistol is not my top choice as a primary lubricant I still wouldn't hesitate to use it in a pinch or if that was all that was handy.

[Evil D]

Mineral oil is something I can buy for pennies from any grocery store ot drug store around and its never felt inadequate for knife pivots. Can't imagine the extra $$ nano lube costs is worth whatever marginal performance gains it may offer.

My problem with mineral oil is it gets gunky after a while. It also seems to attract lint like a magnet. I like that it's cheap and plentiful but there's no way I'd choose it over grease. Maybe for pinned knives I can't take apart but I also think I'd sooner use motor oil unless there's a major concern about food prep. It's easy enough to lube a pivot and not get it everywhere.

[Calicoast]

Blue lube seems to work well.

Out of this stuff at the moment, but will be purchasing some more today.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0787FH8RL/re ... lDbFWXRXKQ

C

[Bloke]

Mineral oil is something I can buy for pennies from any grocery store ot drug store around and its never felt inadequate for knife pivots. Can't imagine the extra $$ nano lube costs is worth whatever marginal performance gains it may offer.

My problem with mineral oil is it gets gunky after a while. It also seems to attract lint like a magnet. I like that it's cheap and plentiful but there's no way I'd choose it over grease. Maybe for pinned knives I can't take apart but I also think I'd sooner use motor oil unless there's a major concern about food prep. It's easy enough to lube a pivot and not get it everywhere.

You can’t really compare mineral oil to today’s engineered oils. :)

[Evil D]

Well surprise surprise it showed up today. Estimated delivery was 17-19th so two days early isn't bad. I went ahead and took apart, cleaned and lubed my Caribbean and unmodded Sliverax (meaning nothing inside it has been polished, however the Caribbean is mirror polished on the tang/detent path).

First impressions are actually quite good, easily better than any other liquid type lube I've used, though I still plan on doing a blind comparison vs motor oil.

On my Caribbean, I tried to adjust the pivot as close to how it felt with the grease as I could, meaning no perceivable side play even with a firm wiggling, while keeping the blade so that it will drop closed but only with a little wrist jiggle. The action is at least as smooth and perhaps a little quicker (grease tends to slow things down, even lighter weight grease). Beyond that there's not much difference vs the grease, in fact I'd say if someone did this to my knife without my knowing I wouldn't suspect a thing.

The Sliverax is a bit more interesting. I can dial in the pivot so there's no blade play at all and the blade swings like a pendulum completely free of any friction (no change vs grease and a reminder of why I love this bearing pivot) but I can feel the bearings rolling in the pivot, while the grease seemed to either smooth out those grooves better or dull the vibration felt through the handle, giving the perception that the pivot action is smoother. It's an interesting difference, as there definitely isn't any obvious difference in friction, but the feeling of the bearings does seem different to me. It may also be of note that this particular Sliverax is the newest CQI and has the smoothest bearing race of all 3 that I have.

On both knives I used a bamboo chopstick wedged into the handle to press the lock bar open so there's no chance the detent ball either slowed down the action or created any vibration feelings moving over the finish of the tang (not an issue regardless on the Caribbean since it's mirror polished anyway). I also lubed the detent balls anyway.

I feel like on the Caribbean in particular the action feels much the same as it did with grease, which is kind of a big deal as I haven't had the same success with any other liquid lube as I have with grease (being able to adjust out all the blade play without ruining the action). Nano-Oil is without a doubt better (less friction) than Tuf-Glide or Tri-Flow which are the two lubes I most recently played around with and compared to Phil Wood grease which were fairly poor compared to the grease.

Tomorrow I'll clean out both pivots and get some Mobil 1 out of the garage and see what we can find. Does anyone know if this stuff is difficult to clean off? Has it "bonded with the metal" or some other witchcraft? That might give some false comparisons if I don't completely clean the stuff off.

[vivi]

Mineral oil is something I can buy for pennies from any grocery store ot drug store around and its never felt inadequate for knife pivots. Can't imagine the extra $$ nano lube costs is worth whatever marginal performance gains it may offer.

My problem with mineral oil is it gets gunky after a while. It also seems to attract lint like a magnet. I like that it's cheap and plentiful but there's no way I'd choose it over grease. Maybe for pinned knives I can't take apart but I also think I'd sooner use motor oil unless there's a major concern about food prep. It's easy enough to lube a pivot and not get it everywhere.

I've never had it gunk up on me in any way. Wonder what we're doing differently?

It certainly does attract lint though, which is why over-applying is a bad thing.

[emanuel]

Another user of the Victorinox oil here, very good oil for the price and safe if you use your knives for food prep... Since I tried it I don’t use any brand more...

Haven't tried many. For some time now Victorinox (the maker of swiss army knives) multi tool oil. Does all I need for my folders.

That oil is by far my favorite. So sticky, and it doesn't evaporate over time. Its also food-grade as far as I remember. For the people in the USA, easiest way to get it is from Amazon. Its listed as "Swiss Army Knife Multitool Oil".

Guys, it´s time Victorinox pays us some money I guess... or at least give each an SAK for free... :p :D

Haha, I would be happy with a lb of this stuff thank you very much. So I can leave some for my future great-grandsons before I pass away :D