Grease guns can be equipment killers

Hello, I'm Jeff Shiver Managing Principal of People and Process. Today I wanted to share a tip with you around grease guns.

A grease gun can actually be a deadly weapon. Do you realize a grease gun can put out 10,000 to 15,000 pounds per square inch of pressure? What happens is that in uneducated hands people go and squeeze and keep going till they feel some pressure or something like that. They blow the seals out on the equipment and bearing or whatever the case may be. When the seal gets blown out, the grease expands as it heats up and then it pulls in the contaminants or it pulls in the grit and stuff into the bearings itself. You're basically killing the bearing when you do that.

The challenge is to recognize that a grease gun is a deadly weapon and so you want to make sure that you're filling the bearings, as an example, with the correct amounts. An SKF, for example, will give you a CD that says okay on this particular bearing you need to put this much lubricant.

How will you know how much lubricant you're putting in there? You can actually calibrate your grease guns. How many shots equals as one as an example? Then you compare that against a CD with SKF. That's one option.

Also, you want to make sure that you color coat your grease guns so that your storage containers or your grease tubes match this particular color that reflects on the grease guns and fitting or the grease fitting itself on the bearing or whatever. That way we can minimize errors and make sure we're putting the right fluids in the right places. Hope you enjoyed the tip. I'm Jeff Shiver managing principle of People and Process. Have a great day.