What is a good oil and main spring grease for pw's?

Hi Ed


Poor KT22 about $5 a tub

OK stuff Mobius 8200 9-19L $15.00 for 20cc

Best HP1000 for larger WW & smaller PW or HP1300 lager movements $99.50ea 20cc

To give you a idea I currently have about 14 different oils in my draw from kt22 cheap Stuff to the high end. I am currently looking at adding another 6 or so new oils that have appeared.
never use old oil found in old watchmakers draws etc always fresh new stuff if in doubt dont use it other than on garden tools!!

Oils are very much your own taste and many people will have there own preferences. its knowing how to use them in moderation and where is the big secret.



Remember oils are like politicians they are all slippery and as soon as you put them to work they start to deteriorate.

I need to add to the above those are mainly for the mainspring (non autos of course)there are numerous others for the rest of the watch, to name one 9010 is good around the balance and escapement and 941/2 for the pallet jewels 18,000K, 9415/2 for higher beat they are about $30 a small bottle, to name a few

Chris,
Thanks for the informatiion on the lubricants.
Do you use mostly synthetics or the older type?

Nearly all higher grade oils are now synthetic, however thing like D5 are still a very good oils but now being replaced, I may have used 1cc of the 20cc bottle in a year most of that wasted in the oil cup At some point you just have to give up and use the old bottle on the garden tools and replace with newer oils even at $100 a bottle!. I was just talking to a friend about a problem with a automatic watch and being a older one no tech sheet, we looked at barrel grease with different braking strengths there was about 6 types alone for that one job each with different applications. you could easily hold towards $1000 of oils in your draw to cover the different needs.

I know that different parts of a watch move at different speeds. Different materials have different friction results. But I had no idea that so many different lubricants were reccomended for one watch.
Many years ago I worked in a paper mill. My first job was an "oiler" When the machines were down for any length of time I was expected to attack it and grease as much as possible before the problem was fixed and it was started again. Now, a paper making machine is a huge machine and it took hours to grease all the moving parts.
If time didn't allow to grease all the fittings before it started again, Oh well, we will get it the next time. Well sometimes "the next time" didn't happen for quite some time!
To make a long story short. Unless a person is a trained watchmaker, engineer or the equivalent in other fields, lubrication is lubrication. A little of something is better than none at all.
Thanks for the eye opener! I am glad we have specialists as you and others here to give us the correct answers to our novice questions.

I would say, if you are looking for a selection for general home use pocket watch oils and keeping cost sensible, I would say defiantly Mobius 9010 for balance, escape, 4th & 3rd, if you didn’t want to invest in 941/2 pallet oil the 9010 would do, 8200 for mainspring, Keeping it cheap KT22 for setting parts stems/sleeve but recommend better if possible $$, D5 for barrel, center wheel.

However, I would like to add if the watch is not cleaned properly or set up correctly any efforts in oiling would be wasted.

Would be interesting to see how many oils are in use in clocks given the wide size ranges