Standup Zone Forum
The Foil Zone => Wingsurfing, Windfoiling, Wingfoiling, Wing SUP => Topic started by: liv2surf on September 03, 2020, 10:23:34 AM
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Damn that Tef-Gel is STICKY and can make a mess. Definitely a love hate relationship since it does work for preventing seizing of stainless bolts in aluminum.
I discovered that 91% isopropanol (stronger version of rubbing alcohol) can soften and dissolve it slowly. Helps in removal from bolts (to get the threads clean) and from outside of fuselage etc where it serves no beneficial function. Passing a both through a die (as in tap and die) will remove the grime pretty well.
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Yeah I agree that stuff if foul, and thousands of people putting it in the water sounds like a terrible idea. I quit using it over a year ago.
Been using this ecogrease and have been both PTFE free and seize free ever since:
https://www.green-oil.net/Ecogrease.html
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I got an Armstrong foil, no grease no washing no worries :)
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Any difference in composition or performance between Tef-Gel from Australia included and sold by Axis foils and this stuff Ultra Tef Gel made made in USA?
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Same stuff. I own both. Feels and looks the same. Both just as sticky and messy. Titanium rules.
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Same stuff. I own both. Feels and looks the same. Both just as sticky and messy. Titanium rules.
Yea, I am going to get some titanium at least for frequently removed bolts (e.g. those inclined to most frequently make a mess).
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4 oz is a lifetime supply--for a tribe. Tef Gel works better with a microscopic dab than it does if you slather it on. The layer you need is a few microns thick. any more than that and you're just adding goop. I have a syringe of tefGel as well as two tubes that came with Axis foil kits. I've had the syringe for probably twenty-plus years and it's still more than half full. I use it constantly with stainless steel bolts and nuts. It might hold an ounce. Worrying about the ecological impact of something that you SHOULD use in sub-gram quantities is silly, except that the world is full of morons who think that if a little is good, a lot will be better. TefGel used to come with a little pamphlet that told you how to use it. They probably stopped doing that, understanding that having people like me use half an ounce in twenty years is not a great business model.
I don't know how you'd be getting it on the fuselage unless you're wadding it on like toothpaste commercials. If you need to run your bolts through a die to clean them up then the problem is obvious--you're using at least a thousand times too much.
I don't quite get the notion that titanium solves everything. I don't know of anything that galls worse than titanium. I've machined it--it's a nightmare. It sticks to everything, including tool bits, and rips them right off the tool rest. Both aluminum and titanium have high stacking fault energy--as does Stainless though it's much lower than titanium. If Titanium galls to Aluminum or to titanium it's over--you'll have to cut the parts apart. I've cut titanium nuts in half that are self-welded to a titanium bolt and still couldn't pry the two halves off the bolt.
Google "Titanium galling" to see what I'm talking about.
The only reason I can think of that you'd think titanium bolts are superior (other than weight) would be that the manufacturer expects them to gall, and machine or coated them to prevent it. If the peak of the male thread (bolt) hits the root of the female thread (nut) and you bring it up to any kind of torque spec it will never come apart again. The manufacturer might avoid that by making the thread shallow and round. The bolt won't strip as it would usually because Titanium is strong, but the female threads will wear fast.
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I purchased the small tub from this Ebay seller, save yourself 10 bucks;
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Tef-Gel-The-Corrosion-Eliminator-2-oz-Tub/224098881971?hash=item342d5591b3:g:hvYAAOSwDrVbGIKf
It's enough for several lifetimes.
My experiences with Ti bolts for bicycles have pretty much all ended in stripped threads.
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Agree with Pono. You really shouldn’t be using much. I use the mascara brush and only put Tef Gel on the brush like every 3 or 4 bolts. It’s still sticky but it should never come off in globs.
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I did not know that only a few microns thick layer of Tef-Gel is sufficient. It seems from the discussion that I have been applying considerably more than necessary. I admit I never looked or read any directions for its use. I have never used or heard of Tef-Gel prior to recently receiving a 10g TUBE with an Axis foil. When applying directly from the 10 g tube onto a bolt, at the beach, is not easy to apply lightly or evenly (assuming one even knows that is the objective). A brush applicator for Tef-Gel seems like a good idea (or maybe the syringe applicator is slightly better than the tube). Sad that Titanium is also not the panacea I was hoping for - so it is a thin coat of Tef-Gel for me. Going forward, I'll also consider the eco-friendly product that Clay mentioned (but Tef-Gel stuff seems pretty water-insoluble to me). I appreciate the discussion here.
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Titanium is awesome. Screwing stainless bolts into threaded titanium plate by hand is not going to result in galling. My big issue with Axis was the aluminium corroding where ever it touched another metal or carbon. Only had it six weeks and it had lost a lot of anodising. Yes I washed it in fresh water. Ended up having to grease every join. The Armstrong stopped that totally. Do not even wash it.
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Forgot pic
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Let’s clear things up. Armstrong does not use titanium screws. No brand does. A few brands titanium coat the stainless screws. Armstrong does not.
Titanium being the harder material, and stainless being soft, is the magic. Combined with there being no galvanic corrosion problem between the two. Armstrong uses titanium t-nuts and titanium tapped inserts inside the carbon bits, no galvanic corrosion with the carbon.
What has been nice, beside the lack of corrosion, is how the stainless screws bite into titanium. Screws don’t vibrate loose. They don’t even need to be tight beyond screw driver force levels.
BTW, with Axis, I only added more tef-gel when the fuse to mast screws became hard to remove after a session. Maybe every 6 months or so.
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Mascara or tooth brush. The little syringe comes with one.
And remember kids, the idea is that the bolts and screws give way, not your expensive gear. Softer bolts, harder stuff.
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Yes, they won't vibrate loose, they are micro-welded in place (which is what galling is on a larger scale) and you really, really don't want to tighten them more than screwdriver tight or spin the screws in quickly or they will weld a LOT more. Titanium has an unusual crystal structure, or actually either of two structures depending on how it is made. I love/hate titanium. Love its properties, hate trying to work it. The technology to do that well is ridiculously complex. The machined chip has to be thin, or progress from thin to thick, you can't have any vibration anywhere in the machine, and feed speeds are super low. You can set up super carefully, sit there watching everything cut like butter, and then a tiny wisp of smoke comes off the cutter and a second later everything rips apart. My cheap-ass lathe/mill has ruined at least half the Ti parts I've made on it.
When I was a kid I splurged on a titanium fountain pen, which was a big "fuck you" to the Soviet Union because the USA had the tech to even press-form a fountain pen shell that anyone could buy and built a lot of the SR-71 Blackbird with it, but carefully refused to share the tech with the soviets. That cat has been out of the bag for fifty years.
Jesse James makes pistols from titanium and Damascus steel, by himself, in his shop. Some folks think his chopper work was over-rated and i think he's a complete whackjob, but the guy is a golden god of fabricators. I couldn't do that if I had a hundred years to learn the techniques.
(https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.pinimg.com%2Foriginals%2F2c%2F50%2F7f%2F2c507fbeba85f5d7ae9168eca9a670a4.jpg&f=1&nofb=1)
Making inserts for carbon fiber masts from Ti is a brilliant step. It won't corrode in seawater, or even in acid, and if you use the right screws and don't go crazy tightening them they'll last forever. The Stainless steel screws won't last quite as long, but the amount of stainless being stripped each time you run them in and out is microscopic. Just don't use an impact driver and they'll be fine. It's like permanent Locktite, though it works differently. Locktite fills the void behind the screw contact face that is created when the screw is tightened. Ti and stainless weld on the contact face.
Using Ti nuts and bolts in a higher torque clamping situation without a lot of prep to control how much welding occurs is bound to end with stuck parts.
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thats interesting about the titanium galling...way back when i rode dirt bikes and titanium axles first. came out they wouldn't sell the nut with the axle...you had to get a regular steel nut to use with the titanium axle...because the titanium nut would weld.itself to the axle and you'd be super SOL...at least with the steel.nut could be cut off with a hacksaw...
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TefGel or other compounds will largely prevent the galling, it's why they exist. But still, if you torque the bits too much you can squeeze and scrape enough off to create problems, and it's never a permanent fix.
Most of what I know about Titanium comes from racing motorcycles. A poor choice of sport for a clumsy guy.