The question is in response to a column we did on lubricating neoprene rollers with silicon in order to help a sliding glass door operate more smoothly.
Your concern led us to LPS Laboratories, a company that manufactures four different lubricants for industrial and automotive use. The LPS Greaseless Lubricant that you referred to IS petrochemical based, but the oil solvent is extremely fine and because petrochemical hydrocarbons such as butane and propane are not used as the propellant the product is "almost greaseless". Interestingly CO2 is used as the propellant and that's about as greaseless and safe as you can get -- even so, LPS-1 is still oil base.
LPS agrees with us that their greaseless solvent shouldn't be used on rubber and plastics and that it would be safer to use their silicon base product called LPS-4. LPS-4 utilizes water as the solvent and will not negatively impact rubber and plastics like neoprene. This is even more interesting because most of the silicone lubricants we know about do utilize oil as the solvent. By the way a solvent does two things: 1) keeps the silicone in solution, and 2) evaporates away once the silicone has reached its destination. Water will evaporate very quickly. Oil takes longer to evaporate, attracts dust and doesn't do much for the environment. Conversely, water borne silicone should not be used on iron and other materials that rust readily. In any case a silicone based lubricant (with either water or oil solvent) is still better than an oil base lubricant for neoprene rollers, rubber and the like.
We thank you for your comments. We have learned much from LPS Labs, but hope that you will switch from LPS Greaseless Lubricant to LPS-4 for your sliding door roller problem.
By the way -- LPS Laboratories is no longer owned by Hoyt Lloyd Corporation and they no longer have a plant in California. We called a few auto parts companies and found that LPS has an excellent reputation for supplying a high quality product. If you want to purchase an LPS lubricant you can write the company at 4647 Hugh Howell Rd., Tucker, GA 30085, or call 1-800-241-8334.
