A blast from the past: the remarkable quality of old greases

We don't want to ruin the surprise, but here's a sneak peak at our upcoming review of  60 year-old vintage collectible grease that still looks terrific! Just look at that quality! We'll have a complete and extensive review in the coming weeks of this amazing vintage product, as well as a surprise or two...

GC Electronics White Lithium Grease: a summery review

With the arrival of summer, our minds turn to that most refined lubricant of the palate: gin and tonic. With so much work to be done in the area of grease research and education, we've decided to join our interest in summer refreshment with this week's review of GC Electronics White Lithium Grease. If someone were to write a poem about today's summer-y (pardon our punniness) review, it might be called "white lithium with lime". Now that we think of it, that is an excellent idea:

white lithium with lime

Now as I was a young grease collector
mine eyes set upon your purple tube
long and squat among the
aisles of enduring commerce;

I bring you home
we climb the steps together
around the bends and
over the threshold

....

Well, obviously we should stick to our real strength: grease reviewing. So let's get back to it.

Downtown Rockford, Illinois.

Image courtesy of Ben Jacobson, under a GNU freedoc license.

Today's grease comes to us from GC Chemicals, located in the lovely city of Rockford, Illinois, United States of America. Here's a little about Rockford that you probably don't know. (We call this introductory background information (blatantly stolen from Wikipedia (everyone does this, don't they)) the "etymology of grease"!)

• Rockford is located at 42°16′11″N 89°4′11″W / 42.26972°N 89.06972°W / 42.26972; -89.06972 (42.269770, -89.069754). Numerically at least, Rockford is a promising city for grease production.
  
• Rockford's first weekly newspaper was published in 1840 and the first successful daily newspaper appeared in 1877. Anthropologists would note that this appears to be evidence for early sophistication, leading in turn to a high-level grease-producing culture.
• On September 28, 2007, Rick Nielsen, lead guitarist of the rock band Cheap Trick, announced plans for a $25 Million restaurant and hotel on the city's far northeast side called "Rick's."
• Rockford has been known as a town that makes toys. The Testors Company still makes model kits and paint and glue supplies for these kits. (yes, we had the same thought and we will look into whether they make grease or not.)
  

Enough of the background already, let's get to that juicy grease review! Up for analysis is a 52ml/1.75fl. oz. tube of GC Electronics White Lithium Grease. According to their own promotional material:

White, lithium soap base grease lubricant that provides superior lubrication and reduces friction and wear to a minimum. Suitable for use on wiping contacts. It retains consistency over a wide range of temperatures, will not oxidize or harden and provides outstanding protection against corrosion. Special lubricant for high frequency contact applications such as television tuners. Purified without traces of metals or metal oxides. Gives lasting protection against oxidation and corrosion. Especially important for use on equip- ment operated in corrosive atmospheres such as A lithium soap base grease with zinc and graphite fillers. Use for wire connectors and aluminum conduit joints. Penetrates aluminum oxide to maintain inter-strand and inter-conductor current paths. Guards against oxidation, improves conductivity and produces a cooler connection.

Breaking down its qualities one by one, we find the following:

• Cost: a priori, we find the price quite reasonable, in the ever-diminishing under-ten-dollar category. We obtained this review specimen locally for - well, we did not keep detailed records, so let's guesstimate this one- $7.32 a tube. Again, a priori (we're trying to get some value here from an undergraduate philosophy degree), this appears to be a candidate for an entry-level grease for those just starting a collection. As I have said before (and I will say it again here), I've heard time and time again from my readers about the prohibitive cost of starting a serious grease collection. We at the GRI are listening.
  
• Ease of opening tube: We had no trouble getting this open. We give it a restrained A in this area.
• Ease of flow: We were deeply saddened that our specimen, upon squeezing, immediately ejaculated significant quantities of oil - on the order of 3ml. As all grease collectors know, this is a symptom of the dreaded oil separation. Oil separation is to grease what moths are to fur storage. Oil separation occurs when the luscious, silky and consistent blend of oil, binder and additives that a grease is consists of starts to break down- and, obviously as the name implies, separate. Faced with the dreaded separation of the oil and additives, we decided to retry and reunite them by placing the securely sealed tube in our back pocket while we sat, strode, shopped and generally moseyed around town. We garnered some success at reuniting the oil and additives, as can be seen in the picture below. However, the eagle-eyed grease lover will notice both the sheen and small pool of oil forming around the point of contact of white lithium and lime (click for larger image):
  

• Wrapping up the ease of flow category, we give our first failing grade: F, for the afore-mentioned oil separation issues. As we have said before, this is of course of no interest to collectors who will just be storing this in its original package on a display shelf.
• Color: Has a somewhat pleasing meringue/ whitish color.
  
• Rubbing on ass factor: With each review we ask the question that is an elephant in the room of grease lovers everywhere: would you want to run this on your ass? Not likely. First, it has a rather unpleasant petroleum smell that sends a strong neural message to our internal circuits, saying, in effect, mutatis mutandis, "yuck". Secondly, the small amount that touched our skin during analysis left a sort of burning feeling even after washing with some of those mini hotel soaps.
  
• Package design: There truly is not much to write home about here. We note first the cost-saving measure of printing directly onto the plastic tube. This is in strong opposition to, say, the finely printed-on-tin label of a Hoppes 1953 gun grease. Printing on plastic is cheap, cheap, cheap, not to mention the fact that it is already rubbing off after a few uses.
  

• Overall Aesthetic grade: we're calling this a solid C- for aesthetics. The package design is non-existent, although the color does have the aesthetic appeal related to meringue, reminiscent of a 1953 Sunday drive to a mid-western American diner with your uncle Greg for a slice of lemon Meringue pie, served by a white-unifromed young waitress on a white Bakelite pie dish.
  

Conclusion: this has the potential to be an excellent grease, if the manufacturer can solve the oil separation problems. For the nascent grease collector who is more interested in collection breadth than lubricant use, this represents an easily-available, low cost "filler" grease for a larger collection.

Overall Grade: C

We leave you with a few bonus shots from our photo shoot, which for this review happened right next door to where BP was announcing their latest oil-spill control efforts!

Hello grease lovers!

Just a quick update to say that we have been out of the office recently, searching high and low for vintage grease. We will be reviewing these products shortly. Until then, may the slippery happiness of grease be with you!

The GRI

Upcoming posts from the Grease Research Institute

Summer is here outside the offices of the GRI, but we would like to assure all our readers that we will have many fascinating posts in the coming weeks! Among them:

• how to finance your first grease collection
• Proper grease collection displays
• Insurance: is a grease fire in your future?
• The etymology of the word "Grease"
• Talking to anti-greasers: how to explain your grease collection to those who just don't understand.
  

We look forward to your feedback on these important issues!

Oil is not grease!

We've been getting reader inquiries as to whether we will address the current oil spill in the Gulf Coast. Our answer is quick and to the point: oil is not grease!

Grease Review: Harvey's brand "Plumbers Faucet and Valve Grease"

This week we take a close look at an exciting and often overlooked viscous lubricant: "Plumbers Faucet and Valve Grease" made by the William H Harvey Company of Omaha Nebraska.

Omaha, Nebraska, United States of America.
Image by Ron Reiring.

But first, a little about Omaha that you probably don't know. (We call this background information the "etymology of grease"!)

• Omaha is the largest city in Nebraska
• Scandinavians first came to Omaha as Mormon settlers in the Florence neighborhood. Who would have guessed!
• Omaha is very international: according to Wikipedia, where we blatantly steal most of the information for these grease backgrounders, "By 1910, 53.7% of Omaha’s residents and 64.2% of South Omaha’s residents were foreign born or had at least one parent born outside of America."
• Enough of the background already, let's get to that juicy grease review!

Up for analysis is a 29.6ml/1fl. oz. tube of Faucet and Valve Grease. Breaking down its qualities one by one, we find the following:

• Cost: this is cheap stuff! At only $3.60 a tube, this is an entry-level grease for those just starting a collection. I've heard time and time again from my readers about the prohibitive cost of starting a serious grease collection. Well, this is the answer: at $3.60 a tube, how can you say no?
  
• Ease of opening tube: We did have a little trouble getting this open, as the tube-end was molded shut. We give it a B- in this area.
• Ease of flow: This puppy flows with nice control from the tube. Of course this is of no interest to collectors who will just be storing this in its original package on a display shelf, but for the rare few who actually need a good lubricant, this has to be mentioned.
• Color: Has a sickly sort of congealed urine color. Just seeing it makes me want to scream "Nurse, it smells like you're in here!"
• Rubbing on ass factor: Would you want to run this on your ass? Although possible, since this is a non-toxic grease designed for water supplies, it's not likely that you would want to rub this anywhere on your body, or even have someone else (say, an attractive Swedish woman) do this for you either. We chalk this up to the color: if the manufacturer down in Omaha had just added something to get it away from that sickly urine color, it might indeed be butt-rubbable.
• Package design: The design here is sort of contemporary derivative of modernist typography and layout principles. To wit: we note the graphical call to a single authority, in the form of a brand, as is common in modernist structures. The general layout harkens back to the good old 1950's; which is perhaps understandable when we think of Omaha, the rise of suburbia and life in middle America. The graphical message here is that this is grease for your average Joe plumber, for your Average Jack and Jane's suburban faucet. Compare this to the graphically fantastic Tamiya grease we featured last week. There was an opportunity here for this week's grease to project an inclusive, perhaps postmodern vibe, but it was missed by its package designers. Just have a look at this bilingual instruction panel:

While we'll always appreciate humorous value of the words "ball cock" when they are put together, there's a banality to the overall description.

Assuming you are still awake after reading that label, we'll move on to our final comments!

• Overall Aesthetic grade: we're calling this a solid C for aesthetics. The package design is lacking, the color does not have the aesthetic appeal to make you want to rub it on your butt.
  

Conclusion: this is an average-looking grease with equally average packaging. On the upside, its low cost makes it an excellent entry-level grease for the collector.

Overall Grade: C+

PS: Here are a few bonus shots from our photo shoot, which happened right next door to where they take those racy American Apparel photos:

Cheesecake Photo Spread: Tamiya Molybdenum Grease

(Click on image above for a mouth-watering close-up. Warning: Not Safe for Work!)

Here at the Grease Research Institute, we have a mandate to raise the public profile and understanding of grease. To this end, we're pleased to publish our first 'cheesecake' grease photo spread, on Tamiya's Molybdenum Grease.

Molybdenum Grease- wow, what a boring name! This stuff should be called Tamiya Soft and Sexy Moly! Just look at how beautifully it complements this vine-ripened tomato! The amazing contrast between the Japanese-designed fine-quality paper box, with its amazing modernist graphic styles, and the natural, rich cherry red of the tomato is not lost on us at the GRI!