• Welcome to BirdForum, the internet's largest birding community with thousands of members from all over the world. The forums are dedicated to wild birds, birding, binoculars and equipment and all that goes with it.

    Please register for an account to take part in the discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.
ZEISS DTI thermal imaging cameras. For more discoveries at night, and during the day.

Head lubrication?? (1 Viewer)

gonzobluefuzz

New member
Hey all,

Looking to pick your collective brains/experience. Sorry for the intrusion.....here goes.

I have a Manfrotto ballhead that had accumulated (what I felt to be) a large amount of sand, crud and other assorted good stuff. Part way into disassembly I discovered that these are lubricated with some sort of heavy almost dry grease. Since It was already most of the way apart I continued with the disassembly and cleaning.
I now have a clean disassembled ballhead. (BTW upon inspecting components wear appeared negligible to nil so I probably did this for nothing ).
Prior to reassembly I want to re-lubricate.... my question is what type of grease is usually used. I'm sure that my friendly local cam. shop would be more than happy to sell me a tube of "miracle ballhead lube" at $20 a nano blister pack. in all honesty thats not quite what I'm looking for! I'm looking for an equivalent/similar less specialized product that I could pick up at an auto supply or hardware store at a fraction of the cost.
I realize the amount of money involved is a pittance in the grand scheme of things but on the other hand I hate getting hosed at the register on this type of stuff.

Hope this makes sense,

Cheerz,

G
 
Last edited:
Head lubrication - Pint of Guinness should do it.

Sorry, couldn't help myself.

Hopefully someone will give you a useful answer soon!

All the best,

Mark
 
Hi G,

If I don't want grit etc to stick to lubes I use products such as 'WURTH High Performance Dry Chain Lube' for motorcycles, or DRI-SLIDE (I forget the manufacturer's name), you won't really see it on the part to be lubricated but it lasts a very long time.

I'm assuming that both products are available in Canada, Wurth is I believe an American product.

Hope this helps,

Regards,
John
 
As an engineer I would suggest a silicone based lubricant, I use a spray type one for my tripod head. (for pedal cycle chains as you say has a dry feel to it so used sparingly no mess)

Stewart
 
Warning! This thread is more than 16 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top