anyone know where to buy Teflon oil or PTFE?

[StiMan]

does anyone know where i can buy the chemical PTFE? what sort of store should i look to buy it from?

i not going to add it to my car oil, but rather i want to coat my rc-engine crank/piston with it.

i could buy slick 50, but i'd rather pure PTFE.

cheers

 

[labman]

Anywhere they sell plumbing supplies will have the thin pipe dope stuff. Trouble is, nothing sticks to it. Many years ago I was at a talk on adhesives where they said they use 7 layers to coat the Teflon cookware. They start with something that will actually stick to the Teflon, then something that will stick to that, and work their way to something that will stick to layer 6 and the metal. By now, they may have it down to only a couple. They didn't say what the 7 layers were.

Some of the commercial plastic suppliers might sell tubing. Buy an undersize piston and force the tubing over it. A lathe might help. Teflon also has a higher coefficient of expansion than most metals.

 

[Gary Allan]

About the only way I can see you doing what you want (if I read your intent correctly) is to wrap the pieces in teflon tape and then heat it to around 550 degrees ...you might get lucky and the stuff might actually provide an even coat.

I'm on layoff (position eliminated) from a plastic extrusion outfit (medical tubing). There you can make it any I.D./O.D. you want. I would find it unlikely that you would find just what you need in either dimension for "off the shelf" tubing. Labman is right ..you are going to have to work it and I'm unsure of an economical source for this.

Teflon is a hard compound compared to most others ..nylon is up there too. Both dwell in the same temp range (550-650) when applied. Don't let its soft exterior fool you ...it plays havoc with some pretty expensive and hard alloys under pressure.

If you want to do something novel, why not get yourself an airbrush and do the advanced powder coatings that racers do to the combustion chambers/piston TOPS/bearings??

 

[StiMan]

oh so ptfe is solid form?

i thought it was liquid form.

i was wanting to immerse my rc engine in ptfe for a week to reduce friction. I'll just try it with Slick50.

 

[Gary Allan]

It's applied in a liquid suspension ...but the liquid isn't teflon. You've got a bunch of granular teflon suspended (of unknown size) in some liquid that evaporates when exposed to air. It must have some adhesive properties to it to allow the teflon to adhere to the item that you're applying it to. Tyically you apply it to a threaded joint and then thread the joint together. It never gets a chance to flake off. If you allowed it to set up and then tried to thread the joint ...you would probably shead most of the stuff you put on it.

I wouldn't use Slick 50. All you are doing is introducing a bunch of hard granular particles that can't do anything to coat anything until they reach over 550-600 degrees ...at which time every other piece in your lubricated area is tyically turned to coak/carbon.

look at the tensile strength and temp ratings.

Just for gits and shiggles ...try the tape and an oven. If it don't work out ..take a razor blade to it to remove it. This should satisfy your need to see "what if".

 

[MolaKule]

Solid Teflon is only good for specialized bearings and it is usually a matrix of teflon, bronze, etc.

In some aerospace applications, the metal parts are coated with Teflon using high temperatures and large vacuums for deposition, a very exact laboratory procedure and very costly.

In a highly loaded area, Teflon shears too easily, so I doubt it has any benefits on a crankshaft.