Aloha Ohana,
I ended up with a few tubes of Ecolab silicon grease. They were originally for greasing 0-rings for a few camera housing, that are no longer in service. Im wondering if it can be used for reels in anyway or if there any other useful ways to use up this since, I would hate to throw it away. Thanks
I would test it to see how well it handles mixing with water first.
use it anywhere but on drag washers. i tried a long time ago and silicon did now work.
The "Ecolab" grease that I'm somewhat familiar with is a "food safe' type. There is a "fish processing" company, who's forklift, and skid loader was "serviced" by the last dealership I worked for......all the oils, greases ,anti freeze...everything, had to be "food safe". As I recall, the grease was clear, and seemed to hold up as well as "conventional" grease on the tractors. I do remember it was VERY expensive...over $100 for a tube!! The skid loader was used to "bucket" the fish from the tank that they were put in, on arrival, to the "cutting floor", and used to haul the "carcasses' to the area where "fish fertilizer" was made. The grease seemed to be "somewhat" waterproof, but, being clear, it was hard to tell if it was "mixing" with water.
Thank you gentlemen for replies.
Food safe, huh. That means they had to show someone exactly what is in it and everything is generally recognized as safe. Most tubes of grease will tell you in the fine print to not get it on your skin because of one ingredient or another.
I'm with Nelz. Watch out for lots of emulsion.
-steve
We have a product we use on Process pumps, seals, valves, light duty bearings and zwickles called Petrogel that sounds similar to what you describe. I would describe it as a higher viscosity version of Vaseline. I'm not sure of the durability; for us it's not really an issue since in our applications the components are regularly CIP'd and then relubed upon assembly prior to sanitizing. For the ball bearings on our smaller canning machines it primarily serves to keep liquid from getting into the works of the open bearings, and gets reapplied weekly after a hot water rinse down/wipedown. It breaks down pretty quickly under heat (not the kind of conditions you would normally see fishing) hence why everything gets relubed after CIP.
One good food safe lube is, lanolin, it is scoured from sheeps wool, they us it in the butchering trade, also Inox lube is from wool, they say its food safe to, I know a marine technician, who uses Lanolin to grease his prop bearings, he purchases it by the 25 lt can, there is a company in Queensland Australia, that stocks it, but all the scoers have closed down in Aussie now, I think most of it is scoured in China now. cheers Don. cheers Don,
donnyboat, it seems like lanolin doesn't hold up to well if that mechanic has to order it in a 25 liter container which is more then 6 gallons US.
I would only use silicon grease in plumbing applications - push fit - sliding joints - o ring sealed pipes etc. - not for fishing reels.
Horses for courses.