The truth about gasket grease

[smfcpacfp]

Actually I don't know the truth, I am seeking it.

I have a Recsea camera housing and Sea & Sea strobes. Each of these companies sells tiny tubes of silicon (I guess it is silicon) gasket sealant (grease) at outrageous prices. A salesman told me regarding the Recsea housing if you used another type of grease, the gasket would expand and be ruined, so I have dutifully used the official grease.

I looked at the Recsea manual and it says to use a silicon grease, no specific brand, with one caveat, don't use a spray grease. I don't think there is anything really wrong with the spray grease except that it would be messy and get grease where you don't want it.

Is it true that I must use each company's grease, or can I just go to a local auto parts store and buy a tube of silicon grease and use it on all of my gaskets?

 

[BoltSnap]

I don't mess around with the grease so I use the strobe/housing brand grease and don't mix different mfg. grease. Even if their grease is pricey, the little bottle of grease should last you years since you are only supposed to use a very tiny amount of grease on the o'rings, just enough to make the o'ring "shiny" and not greasy!! The smaller the o'rings, the less grease you would need to use. The little bottle for the S&S strobes should last you years and years. I clean and grease my camera and S&S strobe o'rings every time I open the sealed doors to work on the camera or change batteries yet the grease bottles last me for years.

The spray grease has other material with the silicon grease it has that are incompatible with the orings plus you can't control the amount of grease that is sprayed on the o'rings as do with the grease bottles that come with the strobe/camera housing.

 

[fmerkel]

It is kind of a pain. The Mfg don't tell you what the gaskets are made of and they all seem to have their own proprietary grease. Having had one main gasket swell beyond it's channel I can tell you it does happen.
Like dissolves like, that's why you use silicone grease on petroleum O-ring. I'm not sure camera gasket grease is silicone based, but that info is not available either.

But as the BurhanMuntasser says, you don't need much and it can last years. It's a trivial part of the cost of dive photography.

 

[Rred]

Rubber parts don't like petrochemicals. "Glastic" (plexi, lexan, etc.) also is attacked by petrochemicals. But, silicone greases can also attack other materials. So yes, if the maker says "silicone grease" that's what you want to use, not a petrochemical grease.

In the auto parts industry, you can buy a little 1/2 ounce tube of "silicon grease" for things like spark plug boots and ignition points (ok, obsolete now) for $4. Or you can buy "silicon high dielectric vacuum grease" in the electronics stores, $8 for a two or three ounce tube. Or, back in the auto parts store, you can buy an eight ounce tube of "silicon high temperature brake grease" (for wheel brake parts) for the same four bucks as the little tube.

And they're all going to work just the same on your gaskets! The exact viscosity may vary, but that doesn't matter here. More important to keep the gaskets wiped down and clean.

If you really want to splurge, you can use something better than silicone grease, like DuPont Krytox. Immune to pure oxygen, chlorine, sulfur, acids. Doesn't migrate or weep. Doesn't care if it is 50 below zero or 500 above zero. just lubricates and protects, and can be used for all your nitrox needs as well. Just one problem: It might set you back $50 for the "toothpaste" sized tube. But it does last forever.(G)

Bottom line, the cost of ordering, handling, shipping, inventorying, stocking, selling, order fulfillment, all that stuff is the same regardless of the size of the tube of grease. Whether it is 1/2 ounce of 6 ounces is almost incidental. So unless you need a tiny tube to fit in your travel kit? Buy the bigger one, there's nothing to risk.

 

[Wookie]

Here is the bottom line. Are you willing to risk your $20 O-ring and a flooded camera to save $8 in the right o-ring lube? If you are happy to take that risk, by all means go for it. Be sure to let us all know how it went. If, however, you understand that diving is an expensive sport, and underwater photography even more so, and that by using the manufacturers recommended grease that you neither void your warranty not flood your camera, by all means, go for it.

 

[GJC]

Lube in a spray can has 2 problems:

1 -It gets everywhere you don't want it to go (like the lens of your camera).

2 -While the lube in the can may be OK on your stuff, the compressed gas used for the propellant may not be compatible with all the plastic and rubber parts in your camera and housing.

 

[bvanant]

There is a lot of misconception about o-ring grease out there in the world. In a previous life we built medical devices that are sealed with o-rings so we spent a lot of time worrying about o-ring lubrication. It is also true that many people believe that grease does the sealing which is not true, the grease is mostly to keep the o-ring supple so that it seals under compression (or tension if your design is truly wacky). It is also true that the "wrong" type of grease can cause an o-ring to expand and potentially leak. In general it is understood that like dissolves like so you often see that fluorosilicone grease can be used on silicone o-rings for example. Fortunately there is a simple (but not really inexpensive) solution to this problem. Tribolube and Christolube perfluoro ether greases are safe for any commercially available o-ring materials from buna-n, to viton, to epdm to silicone to fluorosilicone to ...

Get a small tube of tribolube 71 ($30 for 2 ounces) and you should be good to go for 5 or more years. I store mine in old contact lens cases like this one,
https://www.amazon.com/Kikkerland-C...&sr=8-1&keywords=scuba+contact+lens+case&th=1

and I have been using the same Tribolube 71 syringe for a long time.
Enjoy

Bill

 

[Rred]

"the manufacturers recommended grease"
FUD.
If picking the right kind of screwdriver confuses someone, that's fine. But, as with automobiles, there are industry standard specs for lubricants. Viscosity, base carrier, additives...If you want to follow the manufacturer's recommendations, ask the for SPECS and not BRAND NAME. You'll see the same thing in watches. Omega (and others) recommend that watchmakers use a particularly exotic Swiss oil...which coincidentally is owned by the same company that makes the watches. Ask them what spec is necessary for the oil, and they wont reply.

Bill, you hit it on the head. But Tribo and Christo are cheap junk compared to Krytox.

Which I mainly have and use because I wanted to "grease" something entirely different, which everyone said "You can't grease that" because the service was too extreme. Well, for conventional lubricants, sure.(G)

 

[Wookie]

Bill, you hit it on the head. But Tribo and Christo are cheap junk compared to Krytox.

And Triolube and Christolube work perfectly well, as does Krytox. For the job being done, of course.

 

[offfi]

Which I mainly have and use because I wanted to "grease" something entirely different, which everyone said "You can't grease that" because the service was too extreme. Well, for conventional lubricants, sure.(G)

Now I'm curious...