I work in a hot rolling mill. The grease we use on our rolling stands(chalk bearings) is a lithium complex grease. We are having problems with the grease. It is soaking up the water that is being sprayed on our stands and the grease is breaking down. You can see the water in the grease.Would a calcium based grease be better or an overbased calcium grease? does the overbased grease soak the water or repel it? thanks for your help.

Here are some thoughts:

The Ca Sulfonate grease will soak water and still work fine with it. People say it is much better and effectively avoids corrosion caused by water on metal.

Change the grease and it will improve.

However your problem doesn't lie in the grease but in the sealing of the rolling stands to protect bearings from water splash. Until then your grease consumption will be high.

Roll Chocks - you could look at calcium complex that has better water resistance. Even calcium sulfonate has better resistance as it could absorb some water. But the thickener itself has a lubricating effect still.

I am not sure Dow Corning market these products in your country but you could check with a local Molykote distributor there for more details on G-0103.

I have to agree with Ricky that your application would do well with a Ca Sulfonate base grease. I had a similar situation in a forging process. The steel to be forged was run through a descaler. The bearings were subject to higher temps and water washout. I had been replacing them at a very high interval. I changed the grease to Premalube Xtreme, which is a Ca Culfonate grease with both moly and graphite. It had excellent resistance to water washout, contamination, and heat. We were able to increase the bearing life by over 3x what we were getting. I would recommend talking to the local rep. If you are interested in more information, Mike Holloway of Certified Labs has written a very good abstract on the subject. The abstract can be found in the 2003 Proceedings of Lubrication Excellence Conference. Good luck.

you should look into a grease called SE-100 made by Steward enterprise in appleton wi. its a calcium sulfonate complex grease thats is waterproof it takes extreme heat its a no 2 grease and there a family owned and family run company.we were using an extreme pressure (certified labs)grease there in appleton wi as well but the steward greaseeven outperformed that and our downtime has gone down over 200% ask for James steward 800-569-6845 cell 920-327-3069 (he's gonna kill me for putting his # out there but its the best we've ever seen) tell him mr. odum referred you you.

Odie,
Thanks for the tip. Two questions. Is the price compatible? Does the company look like it will be in business for a while? Thanks in advance for your input.

Try Citgo Aquamarine Grease great water wash out properties and has a 400kgf Four ball weld point.

Sorry marty took so long the price is 4.25 a tube dont know bulk prices but they were cheaper with a better product they have been in business for 20 yrs or so its family owned i think they will be around for a long while.

Dear All

Now Calcium base grease Technolgy is quite old.

It is only used in Truck bearing.

For Hot Rolling mills Particularly for STECKEL Segments etc Grease made up of Barium Soap with Dispersed MOS2 will work better.

I have a very good experience in this Line.

For more details please mail at rrsdelhi@gmail.com

Dear Rajeev

Using Barium soap base graese is hazardous, nobody in word manufacturer these grease other than klueber.

Before recommanding one should know the pollution control rules & regulation of that perticular area or country. I will stick to Calcium sulphonate complex grease which would be effective & non hazardous grease.

Dear tran14, if you need further information & advantage of Calcium sulphonate complex grease over lithium complex grease feel free to mail me on savvyeng@rediffmail.com

Lube Savvy

quote:

Originally posted by tran14:
I work in a hot rolling mill. The grease we use on our rolling stands(chalk bearings) is a lithium complex grease. We are having problems with the grease. It is soaking up the water that is being sprayed on our stands and the grease is breaking down. You can see the water in the grease.Would a calcium based grease be better or an overbased calcium grease? does the overbased grease soak the water or repel it? thanks for your help.

The conditions you described (hot equipment, water spray environment) are some of the basic conditions for which the synthetic greases have been designed. If I would be in your shoes, I would be looking at those types of greases and take advantage of the latest R&D achievements regarding composition of greases, rather than trying to limit yourself to greases containing a particular type of thickener. You might get surprised to learn that many synthetic greases are quite compatible in price with petroleum-oil-based greases. At the same time, in certain applications (one of them may be yours) they outright outperform petroleum-oil-based greases as well.

I'm going to go along with John on this one. With the more comparable prices now it's becoming easier to justify the change. You could also see less consumption/washout therefore bring the cost even closer. But that is generally more of a training issue or a mental 'hump' to over come once a facility is used to pump loads of grease into a system. That's usually the biggest challenge I face when making product changes.

Best of luck!

Tran14

Go to the Timken website http://www.timken.com/industries/industrial/lubricants/

We have developed a special grease just for mill stands. We developed it over the years in our own steel mills.

Hello Tran14

In my opinion i think to try with some grease to aluminium base may be you can try
the ALCO EP 73 PLUS by JET-LUBE COMPANY.
is excelent grease wather resistent, is bearing grease for high temperature too, checkthe product in website www.jetlube.com the MSDS and technical data sheet is available to download.

good luck.

quote:

Originally posted by tran14:
I work in a hot rolling mill. The grease we use on our rolling stands(chalk bearings) is a lithium complex grease. We are having problems with the grease. It is soaking up the water that is being sprayed on our stands and the grease is breaking down. You can see the water in the grease.Would a calcium based grease be better or an overbased calcium grease? does the overbased grease soak the water or repel it? thanks for your help.

I agree with John Micetec to a point. However, the use of a synthetic product does not assure a higher level of performance. In fact when it comes to greases, it generally signifies that the base oil is synthetic as opposed to a hydrocarbon. In regards to water washout challenges, it is pretty much common knowledge that aluminum complex thickener systems as well as calcium sulphonate thickener systems are the most effective systems available when dealing with large quantities of water ingression. Base oil viscosity also plays an important role as well as the additive system.

It is my belief that forums of this type should not be used for commercial benefit, however it is hard to ignore the opportunity to help one in need, consequently, if you would like to learn more, contact me directly.

The customer needs calcium sulfonate complex grease. Synthetic oil in the grease is not the answer. The grease in roll stands doesn't get as hot as you would imagine. The enemy is water and cal sul is king when it comes to water.

I agee to Tom and Ca suphonate complex is doing a good job there
some experience shared are really valuable

hi tran14
did you solve your problem - I want to know the result of your trial or if you are doing so and suggest you another thing with the same grease
pl let me know your opinion

TRY REVERSEING YOUR GREASE SEALS AS A RETENTION SEAL, OR USEING BEARING ISOLATORS AND INSTALL A LUBE VENT BLOCK WHICH WILL FORCE FEED THE BEARING TEMPORARILY, AND THEN ALLOW IT TO VENT THE EXCESS GREASE AND NOT RUN HOT--YOU CAN ALOS RE-CAPTURE THE EXPELLED GREASE FOR ANALYSIS OR ENVIRONMENTAL PURPOSES.

TRY REVERSING YOUR GREASE SEALS AS A RETENTION SEAL, OR USEING BEARING ISOLATORS AND INSTAL A LUBE VENT BLOCK WHICH WILL FORCE FEED THE BEARING TEMPORARILY, AND THEN ALLOW IT TO VENT THE EXCESS GREASE AND NOT RUN HOT--YOU CAN ALSO RE-CAPTURE THE EXPELLED GREASE FOR ANALYSIS OR ENVIRONMENTAL PURPOSES.