Internal hub gears take a pretty high load, as far as bicycle parts go. But the mechanism is quite similar to the innards of a quick change lathe gearbox, especially those of 20+ years ago. Straight-cut gears in a low-temp environment taking a medium load at low rpm's. I would suspect that 20 wt machine oil would work as well in a S/A hub as it does in a South Bend lathe.
Steve Barner, trying to minimize lubricant inventory in Bolton, Vermont. Saw snow on my ride today, perched on the '73 Raleigh Pro I just finished.
> Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 12:18:30 -0700
> From: "Tom Martin" <tom@wilsonbike.com>
> To: <kohl57@starpower.net>, <raoul.l.delmare@worldnet.att.net>,
> <captbike@sheldonbrown.com>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>,
> <brucecumberland@comcast.net>
> Subject: Re: [CR]Lubrication - Sturmey Archer - putting it all together
>
> Interesting fact:
> The original Sturmey Archer oil is (was) sourced directly from Kuwait. It
is
> not straight 30 weight commodity oil. Sturmey was the only one buying that
> particular specification. You could buy this stuff in the metal
rectangular
> tin fairly easily (at least up until a year ago) in the US through
> distributors and bike shops. Currently it is not easy to buy the original
> tin canned stuff, but the Weldtite cycle oil is the same thing (outlandish
> claim.....maybe????- I don't know)- or so I'm told- I'm not a petroleum
> engineer- and is much easier to get in the US. I highly doubt Sunrace in
> Taiwan is going to source oil for old stock hubs that were made in
england.
>
> Can anyone refute my outlandish claim?
>
> Tom Martin
> Oakland CA