New Vintage Motor Lubricant now available, would you give your opinion?
 

This is not an advertisement to sell, but a request for the input of you folks who know so much about maintaining our vintage sewing machines to review this "new" motor lube. There has been quite a lot of discussion about the old Singer Motor Lubricant no longer being manufactured and trying to find the next best thing, is this it?

http://www.novamontgomery.com/feathe...month-2014.htm

It is a bit down the page that comes up, "The August Tip-of-the Month."

I just finished reading thru your link. It's probably worth a try.
Rodney

Buy it for me and I'll test it:>. Otherwise, isn't it an ad asking us to buy a product?

Looks like an ad to me....

CD in Oklahoma

Well, Nova's write-up is an ad, but I was wondering about the opinion of the PRODUCT from you guys. I am not at all affiliated with her. Whenever we suggest a certain product, but aren't selling it ourself, it is not an ad, right? Like not long ago, the red-and-white Singer Lubricant was recommended. And another time plain petroleum jelly was recommended...?

Nothing starts a tiff around here like lube. :D

I would have to say, get some and try it on the gears first. At least that way you can undo it. Then report back to us.

She just put it up for sale yesterday, so I don't expect you'll get any opinions right quick about it since no one would have it.

I know no one would have used it yet, but I believe she posted the ingredients or how it is made, at the bottom of the entry, that I was hoping a chemistry nerd (that is a compliment, as I am chemistry-challenged,) could look at and say "looks good" or " bad news, what is she thinking."

Lube Wars, huh? :-) oops.

I personally know Nova. I have taken a class from her. She is a wonderful person who has a lot of information on Featherweights. I plan to buy this product. She had said in class that she was trying to develop a product to use as a lubricant in place of the singer lubricant. You can go to her website and see all of her recommendations.

Jill

I don't see any mention of the formulation, but I have read in a White Rotary manual that petroleum jelly is an acceptable substitute for motor lubricant. All it's doing is lubricating each end of the armature spindle.

She states in her video to be careful not to push the wick into the armature, but that would never happen, as the armature itself never receives lubrication.

"IF" it is a good substitute for the Singer Motor Lube in the tube I will try it. I'm not so sure about her comments about Petroleum Jelly considering what I've read in other places, but a real lubricant is better.

Joe

That was the one thing that really stood out for me. I've seen petroleum jelly recommended by people who should know what they're doing because it had the same melting temperature as the original lube. Nova says it makes a sticky mess inside the machine. She also states that many old manuals say not to. She could be right, they could all be right. Conflicting data isn't that hard to find in the sewing machine world. :) I only have one machine where I put petroleum jelly in it and it hasn't been there long enough and the machine doesn't get ran often enough to really give it a fair test.
I'm not ordering any any time soon (financial reasons, nothing against the product itself) but from what I've seen of other products the price doesn't seem terrible when you think of the cost of getting it made or at least repackaged in small amounts and it sounds like she put in the effort to find a good product. A little also goes a long way so a tube is likely to last a while.
I don't think she plans to retire off it, I think she is actually just trying to provide a good solution to a known problem.
Rodney

Thank you for your reviews, as far as they can go at this point, just from this information. I appreciate it.

A couple of my White made machines have little grease pots on the motors. The manual says to use petroleum jelly for lube. The little grease pots have wicks in them just like the Singer motor grease pots, so the design is very similar.
I don't see how the use of petroleum jelly would cause soot in the motor ... unless too much p-j was forced into the motor. I suspect that Singer motor lube would cause the same problem if used excessively.

Still if this is an actual grease that is the same or at least functionally the same as the Singer Motor Lube, I'd prefer to use that in lieu of petroleum jelly.

Joe

I read Nova's article yesterday and was wondering what some of you 'old heads' here think about it. Since they don't make Singer lube any more like the original formula, what do you use other than petroleum jelly? And if you use petroleum jelly how do you get it in the grease tubes? Does it come in syringes? Can you tell I'm completely ignorant when it comes to machines? I have a FW that needs to be lubed and I don't want to mess it up. I do have a tube of Singer lube that I bought fairly recently and now I'm afraid of using it.

I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Singer was repackaging petroleum jelly with a few additives (like maybe a little lead to help keep things quiet) then recommending against using petroleum jelly. We are talking about the same company that destroyed trade-in machines to help remove competition from new sales after all. ;)
Rodney

If you ask at your pharmacy you can get a syringe with a blunt tip. They're used to give oral medicines to kids sometimes.
The last tubes I filled I just forced the jelly in with my fingers.
Rodney

Sew-Classic has craft syringes and you can also buy them hobby shops. Most have a curved tip you can cut to just the right diameter to fit inside the hole on the Singer grease tubes. Then just fill the syringe from any bottle of p-j put the plunger back in and inject it into the motor.

I have so many partial tubes of the original Singer Motor Lube in the tube I'm not hurting. But were I to run out I'd give the p-j a try. It works in my White made machines, why wouldn't it work in a Singer?

And Rodney, you might just have something there.

Joe

Actually, the Featherweight manual doesn't warn against using petroleum jelly in the motor. It just says "Never use oil or ordinary grease on the motor. For best results, use Singer motor lubricant furnished with the machine."

I wouldn't classify petroleum jelly as an ordinary grease.

I just talked to an old Singer repairman and he said to oil the part that comes out of the motor only and forget trying to lube ... since Singer doesn't make the lube anymore. Still sounds wrong but if you think about out it ... how often of some of the old Singers actually been lubed and oiled and they still are running like tops. My grandmother's Singer from 1950 has been serviced once that I know of and I learned to sew on it.

I would not listen to that old Singer repairman. I'd scare up some Singer grease and or the stuff N.M. is selling before I'd put oil in the motor.

JMNSHO

Joe

I don't think he was saying to put oil IN the motor. It sounds like he meant to put just a bit on the end of the shaft where it comes out of the motor. I would still grease it though. I can hardly believe that Singer put grease tubes there, but that they should be considered obsolete.

Christy,

Those motors got their design start in the 1920s. Those are grease tubes and that is what needs to be put in them.
Obsolete or not, that's the way of it. We've hashed this motor lube thing over many times here and the thing is, Singer motors need and use grease. Oil, either in the tubes or on the ends of the shafts just won't do the job.

Joe

Maybe I worded that poorly but we are both saying the same thing...use grease in the tubes! :thumbup:

I have tried Nova Montgomery's lubricant.

I had previously lubricated the gears/pots that lubricate the bearings on the motor on my Singer 15-91 with Tri-flow lubricant and the machine was so bogged down that the motor wouldn't run faster than slow. I painstakingly wiped off as much Tri-flow lubricant as possible and since I had just gotten some of Nova's lubricant I thought I would try it. The slow motor problem was solved! I couldn't believe the difference in how the motor performed just based on a different lubricant.

I went back to the Sew-Classic website to read what Jenny said about Tri-flow lubricant and I found out that she doesn't recommend Tri-flow lubricant for grease tubes or pots that lubricate motor bearings via a wick. That was exactly my situation with the 15-91.

I haven't done a comparison with Nova's lubricant vs Singer sewing machine lubricant.

I have no affiliation with Nova or her products but so far I'm pleased with her lubricant.

Susanmarie,

We've discussed the Tri-Flow grease and the fact it's not to be used in motors (Singer or otherwise) many times.
What makes it great for gears, is what makes it unsuitable for motors.

I'm glad to see you've used Nova Montgomery's grease. I've got to try some soon. I've got many Singers and a couple of others that use that type of grease in the motors.


Joe

My old Singer, a 328K only requires grease for the gears, and I suspect, though I don't really know for sure, that my 403A is the same way -- I'll let my son check up on that. In the meantime, I am keeping them both well oiled (but not excessively). I also try very hard to keep the lint cleaned out of them -- that's one thing for sure. I've seen some of the machines that came into the shop where my son worked. The machines were actually packed full to the extreme, and then the women that brought them in just couldn't understand what was wrong! LOL! I'm surprised that some of them didn't totally burn up. Do that too often, and they will burn up! I try to clean the old grease out of the gears before putting more in them -- just my opinion, but I think that makes sense!
Jeanette