A cautionary tale about “dry” Teflon lubrication

Dave Magram · From: San Jose, California, USA

At the risk of starting another “lubrication war”, I’d like to share a recent experience I had involving Teflon. I’ve always used light oil on my Emmons push-pull, but decided to try Teflon lubrication about a year ago after reading about it’s advantages on the SG Forum. I applied “wet” Tri-Flow Teflon on the changer and roller nuts and everything seemed fine.

Then about three months ago, after reading about the allegedly greater advantages of “dry” Teflon here on the SGF, I picked up some “Finish Line Dry Teflon” lube at a bike shop, and applied it to the changer and roller nuts when I changed strings. I noticed the strings seemed to take several days to “settle in” and even then they weren’t staying in tune--something that had never happened to me before. I figured it was a bad batch of strings and changed them a few weeks later, applying more dry Teflon. The second batch had the same problems. The strings wouldn’t stay in tune on stage or (even worse) on a recording session.

I couldn’t figure out what was going on...
I was about to change the strings again, and thought, “I wonder what would happen if I just put some oil on the roller nuts?” So I did that, and… INSTANTLY all of the tuning problems disappeared! Not only that, but I swear that both the tone and sustain improved significantly!

I am not giving tips, advice, or even an opinion, just sharing this story about my experience. But for me, at my next string change I’m going to pry the roller nuts out, give the axles a good cleaning, and the lube on my guitar is going to be “black gold, Texas T” from now on! Smile

- Dave

Georg Sørtun · From: Mandal, Agder, Norway

Yeah, whatever you choose, make sure it stays wet on the roller nut axle, or else you risk hang/hysteresis - as you have observed.

Billy Carr · From: Seminary, Mississippi, USA (deceased)

I like to use Remington gun oil with teflon on guitars. I oil the roller nuts and put a few drops in the changer area each time I change strings, which is about once a month. I also put a drop on all moving parts underneath. Other players describe my guitar(Rains) as smooth as silk. Probably something to do with the builder and maybe a little Rem Oil!

Scott Swartz · From: St. Louis, MO

I use Rem Oil on my roller nuts also, everytime I change strings
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Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Whatever works. I like the regular 'wet' Tri-Flow. I've never tried the Remington gun oil with Teflon, but I imagine that would be good also.

To me, the key is not to use too much - anything in large quantity will attract dust. When I pull a changer out of a guitar, I soak it good in Tri-Flow, but wipe the excess off before I reinstall it. The reason I prefer the Teflon lubricants is that the Teflon adheres even with the excess wiped off. After that, very small amounts seem to refresh just fine.

To me, experimentation is good, and whatever works is good. If it starts picking up dust and dirt, it ain't that hard to tear it apart and clean it, but not everybody wants to do this.

Jeff Evans · From: Cowtown and The Bill Cox Outfit

Rich Peterson · From: Moorhead, MN

It seems to me that it would be a good idea to clean all of the previous lubricant(s) out before applying a different type.

Greg Wisecup · From: Troy, Ohio

Does anyone have an idea why this happened. If I remember the thread correctly, older guitars didn't even have rollers. The strings just ran over the nut.
What do you think is going on? Just curious.
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Glyndon Woosley · From: LaGrange, Kentucky, USA

I use "Super oil" on this Derby. I use it very sparingly and so far, no problems.
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Pete Burak · From: Portland, OR USA

I ran out of Hoppes Oil and all they had was Tri-Flow.
I don't like the smell of the Tri-Flow, but after a coupla days or so it went away I guess.
I'm going back to Hoppes #9.

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

As rich said, ALL old lubricants should be removed when changing types.

Also "Whatever works.", as Dave said. I have zero tuning issues with dry teflon on pedal steel, lap steel, 6-strings with benders or trems - could be bad strings, could be how it was applied, or could be the particular product )a few so-called "dry" teflon products are teflon/paraffin blends.

For decades 6-stringers have used graphite, which is about as dry as you can get, on nuts and even saddles.

I doubt that "lack of oil" is the problem, or that a "caution" is necessary. The dry stuff seems to be working pretty well for most users. And to beat the proverbial dead horse - ALL oils will break down and gum things up unless you flush them completely out on a regular basis. I swore by sewing machine oil for decades, switched to dry teflon about 5 or 6 years ago and have never looked back.
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