Oil for TT bearing - any advise?

Just regular old Mineral Oil in my V.Y.G.E.R. I believe they are in the tight tolerance light oil camp.

Go4vinyl,

Markd51 nailed it: your TT manufacturer recommended a specific bearing lubricant. The fact that other lubricants work well in or improve the sound of other turntables is irrelevant, they don't have the same bearing.

VPI and Linn bearings have fairly loose tolerances, so they need something heavy like grease. If I tried that in my Teres or a Galibier bearing I'd never spin a record - the tolerances are so tight the bearing would never settle into place. Likewise, if I put the thin oils recommended by Teres or Galibier in a Linn or VPI bearing, there'd be bearing chatter and probably damage.

Thomas Scheu recommended 30 weight, non-detergent oil. Use that until you meet somebody who knows your bearing better than he did. Any auto parts store should have some, or any shop that supplies machine oil, as Viridian suggested.

Lewm,
For my VPI HW-19 MK-IV Platter Bearing, all I use, is the Q-Tips with the long sticks (which are becoming a bugger to find!) and wipe out Bearing Well until I see no more oil on them.

I've never let lubricants-oils dry, where I need a solvent to remove, but I would assume careful cleaning with Naptha (lighter Fluid) shouldn't be detrimental, whether the bearing thrust-bearing materials are Bronze, Brass, Rulon, Nylon, Delrin, etc.

On my bearing, I use regular Mobil 1 10-30W with no problems, and was suggested by Mike at VPI, but I do Lube around every few months. Oil is never a problem at the bottom of well, as there it will collect, but up at the top of bearing, gravity will make oil leave the top Bushing area rather quickly.

With VPI's earlier designs, it only takes a few minute's time to yank Platter-Bearing, re-lube bearing shaft with a light film, and re-insert. Mark

I have used synthetic motor oil for years in VPI tables as well as AR. Mobil 1, Castrol, Valvoline, Amsoil, are all viable oils. A new bearing a 10w30 is great, well worn, 20w50. In a BMW manual transmission, synthetic ATF is recommended as a lite gear oil. My favorite is Redline MTL or their Redline ATF. Good enough for BMW manual transmission, god enough for a TT bearing. If there is slop, use the MT90. Too thick is not good as surface saturation may not be as good. The long Q-tips on a stick are the best and I clean the bearing well with ethanol. I let it evaporate, then re-oil. If you have trouble finding the q-tips, let me know and I can get some. Find a friend who is in the medical office business as they are common. I get a bag of about 25-50 for about 7-10.00 Happy spinning, Jeff

Thanks for the "tip"on Q-tips. I've got bushels of them in the house, but I would imagine that it's very important NOT to leave any stray strands of cotton behind. I would first try wipes meant for microscope and camera lenses; those papers are made not to shred during use and are at least somewhat absorbent. I did a search on Vinyl Asylum, and for my Technics SP10 MkII, synthetic motor oil in either 5W50 or 5W40 was recommended by two persons, and no one objected vigorously. Pure ethanol would seem to be a good choice as a solvent for removing any residue when cleaning the bearing housing of old tt's, so thanks for that, too. As for detergent-based motor oils, I would tend to avoid them in a tt bearing. The detergent action is not needed anyway.