"penetrating" Version Of Slide Glide, How To At Home

[trenace]

I have had good success with Slide Glide but of course one has to be able to directly access the surface one wants it on. Sometimes, without full disassembly of a given gun, that's impossible for some parts one might want to lubricate with it.

This solution has worked very well for me: in a small bottle, I add a small amount of Slide Glide and then sufficient hexane (several times as much as Slide Glide but I haven't measured the exact proportion) to make the solution easily flowing to where it can be applied with a medicine dropper and be thin enough to flow where desired.

The hexane rapidly evaporates off, leaving a nice film of Slide Glide on the desired internal components.

Other fast-evaporating solvents might be OK as well but I have not tried any substitutes as hexane (or more precisely, mixed hexanes) works extremely well.

A tip that hopefully might help others. It has made a noticeable difference in the trigger of some guns that otherwise I couldn't conveniently get the Slide Glide where needed, and other lubricants weren't doing quite as well, and also allows precise, controlled, and extremely good lubrication of any sort of part where penetration of an excellent grease is a good thing. Unlike adding an oil to such parts, this stays in place (once the solvent has evaporated.)

[mpolans]

So where does one find hexane?

[John Dunn]

They keep it next to the tetramethylextradeadly in the solvent section of most High School Chem labs.

[shred]

Searching for "hexane and home-depot" or "hexane and Lowes" brings up a ton of pages from... Pot growers.

They say it's available at paint stores, but they couldn't really remember

[LJE]

Searching for "hexane and home-depot" or "hexane and Lowes" brings up a ton of pages from... Pot growers.

They say it's available at paint stores, but they couldn't really remember

HEXANE WARNING !!!!

I WOULD NOT TELL THE GERNERAL PUBLIC TO USE HEXANE AS A REDUCING AGENT. IT IS HIGHLY FLAMMABLE, CAUSES SKIN IRRITATION, RESPIRATORY PROBLEMS, ETC. IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT HEXANE, CHECK THIS LINK:

HEXANE

Hexane is a very fast evaporating solvent. When I worked in the electronics industry, it was used to wash the flux off the PC boards after soldering the components. It is also used by the paint industry as a solvent for some specialty finishes.

NOT MY CHOICE FOR A REDUCING AGENT.

[Catfish]

that has not been my experience with slide glide. once it's applied on my STI, it goes everywhere, and I mean, everywhere.

Hell, I had slide glide inside my mainspring housing and I can promise you I didn't put any in there.

[tightloop]

Find it just to the right of the Heptanes looking at your Mass Spec analysis

[trenace]

Well, I don't know a convenient place for buying hexane, though most chemical suppliers have it, and that's how I have it. Mine came from Fisher, but I'm a chemist by profession so that was possible; another source could be Gallade for example which is not as fussy about who they sell to but they will want a reason, preferably business-related. The basic principle doesn't depend on any special property of hexane, other than being fast-evaporating and physicochemically compatible (in being an oily-like substance except much lighter) so experimenting with a substitute is likely reasonable if desired.

LJE, I have to disagree on making any major point on "toxicity" of hexane... it's way less toxic than all sorts of other things used with guns. It's just another light hydrocarbon... you have octane as in gasoline with 8 carbons, heptane with 7, then you have hexane with 6 (and if interested further down the chain, pentane with 5, or butane as in a lighter with 4.) As organic solvents go this is one of the least toxic. As you mentioned, one use is in electronic cleaning, and it's present in products like LPS Micro-X, which Teddy Jacobson recommends for gun cleaning -- introducing FAR more hexane vapor in the air than this use I am describing does. Chemists routinely use it on the benchtop without insisting it be in the fume hood, including in moderately large scale use such as column chromatography. So it would not be right to put it that I'm suggesting anything out of line here. Don't go drinking it, don't breathe fumes on purpose but there's no big deal here. I appreciate that "bad warnings" can be found but that is true for "dihydrogen oxide" (water) too, you know. In any case, it evaporates rapidly. If you want to do this out in your garage or outdoors to keep fumes (of extremely small quantities of it, we're talking using a few drops at a time) out of your house, that's fine, and indeed I'd suggest it with any gun chemical, but much less need for it with this than with most.

Catfish, personally I don't experience that with Slide Glide, it stays where I put it and areas such as being talked about here, don't wind up getting lubricated by it except by making a penetrating version as described. However, obviously if all parts you might want lubricated with Slide Glide get well lubricated with it simply from splatter that manages, in your own case, to distribute and penetrate everywhere in its regular form, then there would be no point for you for this. But myself, that hasn't been my experience, not even close with some guns, and I have found benefit from this.

Edited March 22, 2006 by trenace

[bountyhunter]

So where does one find hexane?

I think it's lighter fluid? The "ane" brothers figure prominently in those.... hexane, butane, heptane.....