My Favorite Bearing Lubricants
Met Ol by Oust is the best I've tried. Minimal free spin drag and great performance under big loads. Works like it says, under heat it gels up and gives you more lubrication then thins out again as the temperature drops. Categorically excellent. This is materials science guys at their best, here. This is what slalom competition downhill folks use. I know some here in my state.
Singer Sewing Machine Oil. does work quite well. It's very low viscosity and will sling out of your bearing in about 40 hours of skating, but while it's in there, you get excellent performance.
Novey Zoom-Spout Turbine Oil is also a good for skate bearings since it's non-gumming and has no detergents. Detergents are the enemy of skate bearings with ANY non-metal parts (like the bearing cage) and we never want lube with detergents in our skate bearings as they will hasten the ruin of the bearing cage or shield coatings and gum up the balls with any residue they "clean" off. No matter what lube you choose, avoid detergents! This most often comes in the form of "penetrating" oil or WD-40 brands made to break stubborn nuts & bolts. Don't use that stuff.
Uncle Charlies Magic Oil is a lubricant specifically made for roller skates, or so they claim. I get the same results as with Singer oil, which is to say good, but gotta service after 40 or so hours or they are going to be a bit dry.
Pennzoil Platinum Euro LX 0W-30 Full Synthetic Motor Oil is another lubricant you can use for skate bearings if you are needing something for full immersion. I do this with cheap furnature-level ABEC-3 bearings that you can buy 100 for $20 on Aliexpress or some such. I first strip out their furnature grease with acetone and get them dry. Then, because these are fully 608ZZ shielded and I can't take off either of the metal shields, I immerse them in the oil. This is a common lubricant you can get at any auto-parts store because they are what a lot of hybrid cars use for motor oil, even though it's very thin by motor oil standards. In our case, for skate bearings, that's great! The synthetic nature of the oil means it's got great heat resistance and molecular durability to go the distance. Then I remove all the bearings from the immersion, drain them onto a paper towel for a few days, put them into a rag and sling them in a circle for a about 30 seconds to drain out the excess, then clean them externally with a Lemonene soaked rag so they aren't oily and attracting dust. Then I give them to kids at the rink who have worn out bearings or people who have blowouts etc... Cost me very little but allows me to be generous when someone (usually a teen) needs a new set of bearings at the rink I basically live at. They will last a year or two and longer/better than most ABEC-3 bearings in new Chinese skates.
I do not like Bones Speed Cream. It's too thick and drags down freespin too much like grease. I have used silicone and Lithium grease in the past with decent results but with some increase in starting drag. Speed Cream shows both starting drag and an overall decrease in bearings not made for thick lubricants. Bronson G3 bearings work well with grease and thick oil because they have channels to allow the preceeding pressure-wave of oil to squish down into the race channels on the bearing seats/annulus. So if you love using grease or thick oil to avoid servicing your skates for a very long time, I'd go with those bearings. I have some and they do work as promised and break starting-drag down on grease a LOT. I made this recommendation to a derby girl who skates outdoors a lot, too. She's still on the same G3 + Poison Savant rig two years running. She's running white Lithium grease and still gets 25 seconds of freespin (not great, but not terrible either considering the service interval).
Comments
Thanks for sharing :). I use bearings speed clean kit by Oust. What I like most about this kit is the cleaning solution that’s included; it cleans my bearings efficiently without hazardous chemicals and other toxic ingredients.
Thank you for sharing. This is my experience: a skate bearing works under conditions of low rotation speed, low load and low temperature compared to the nominal values for which the bearings (e.g. type 627 and 608) are designed. Thus, in my opinion, any commercial oil *specifically* developed to lubricate mechanical components made in steel, is more than adequate. For example, a 0W20 commercial oil is perfect: it has a low viscosity, contains antioxidant and high pressure additives, does not form gummy residues, and is cheap. For example, this oil from Castrol.
The only real problem with roller bearings is dust: it must be solved by cleaning them often. As for any scratches that form on the surface of the raceways and balls due to dust, at Rool ART we made some experiments with a formulation containing a small amount of a solid lubricant (W2S, tungsten disulfide), which is capable of "fill" these defects, adhering very strongly to the steel. This should allow old bearings to be restored to good condition, extending the life of these components. The preliminary results are very promising: this was expected, since similar solutions are available for the automotive industry.
Winston, if you run out of that stuff you're using, try using D-Limonene which also meets your same requirements. It's food-grade in most cases (used to add citric flavors to candy). It can be a slight skin irritant (strips your skin oils - so wash it off), but it's got a super low toxicity especially when compared to Acetone. It is a very strong de-greaser (used industrially for this purpose and in many cleaners) and it's very good at loosening caked on dirt or grease. Because it's slightly cheaper than Acetone, you can use a bit more when doing maintenance. This is the cleaner that's included with most "safe non-toxic bearing cleaning kits" such as the one from Sonic.
Roolart, I share your opinion on using low-weight motor oil and I use Castro 0W20 synthetic as a "bath" for 608ZZ bearings which have two-sided non-removable shields. Turbine oil such as Norvey is also good, as long as it's free of detergents. The oil fully penetrates the bearings then I sling out the excess by putting them into an old sock and swinging it around in a circle for 30 seconds. Then I wipe them off with a clean paper towel. This works great for almost all bearings, once they are clean. Interesting thoughts about the W2S lubricants. I would think that you'd have to have channels for the lube to flow through under the bearing annulus if you filled in all the gaps chemically, because otherwise the pressure wave from the lubricant would create it's own friction load. I guess this is the theory behind the Bronson G3 bearing. It has such special channels they call "micro groove raceways". They even produced a cool YouTube video about it.
When I clean my bearings tomorrow I am going to try a bike chain lube called “EP ultra” it’s a super thin dry lube that is suspended in an emulsification additive. The additive evaporates away and you’re left with a lube that will not attract dirt or dust. It works absolute wonders on a bicycle chain compared to anything else I have ever tried so I am going to give it a shot with the bearings. Skate bearing lubricant is listed on the company website as an “other uses” option.
I’ll report back on the results using Bones speed cream as the control to compare it to.
I have had 3 skate sessions on the EP ultra at this point and I would say that the results are mixed. Firstly, I noticed no negative with this lube, it rolls smoothly and is just as fast as speed cream. I also have not really noticed any positives, there is no clear advantage (that I can tell) of using this lubricant over speed cream. Perhaps price, EP ultra is $14 for 8 oz I believe whereas speed cream is much more expensive. One thing I can say, and this may be placebo but I think that the EP ultra rolls slightly less smoothly as speed cream. It’s not something that would be problematic but it seems like there is an ever so slight rougher feeling to the roll. I wish I could word it better but speed cream felt like the bearings were butter smooth and with EP I can slightly feel the roll of the bearings.
All in all, EP does a great job but for personal preference reasons I believe I will stick with speed cream.