Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

I think most any fairly light machine oil will prove adequate for all of your motion joints and bearing surfaces. I mostly use plain old 3 in 1 oil, which is a non-detergent 20 SAE weight oil. Seeing as none of these applications are for filtered, recycling systems, there really is no need for a detergent oil that keeps particles in suspension. However, with that said, there really is nothing wrong with using a detergent oil in an open system where the oil goes to waste anyway.

Even a small dab of light grease may not go amiss in a situation such as your valve reverser mechanism, especially the long slot, and I find that simple white lithium grease works well there.

Anyplace where steam is likely to come in contact with the surfaces to be lubricated, really should be serviced with real Steam Oil, as it is specifically designed, perhaps engineered would be a better term, to hold on to those surfaces in spite of the cleansing effects of hot steam and water!

Oh yes, and major congratulations on the Acquistion of what is generally thought of as one of the true classic model steam engines. As far as standard production engines go, it is tough to find anything much better than a Jensen #20!!!