Steel drawer slide lube?

[Bentworker]

Any ideas?
Neat old drawers, but metal on metal or metal on plastic pad slides. Any ideas? I was thinking tapping wax lube.

[warmstrong1955]

I use silicone grease.
Doesn't harden up like regular grease does over time.

Bill

[Bentworker]

I tried some Dow Corning 3451 silicone grease on one, and some spray dry silicone on another. So far the dry silicone one is easier to move, but both are smooth.

[curtis cutter]

We used paraffin wax on our ladders in the FD. Slid well and did not attract dust and dirt likes oils.

[spro]

The logo appears to be Art Metal of New York. I don't own that 3-drawer style but the later ones ( punch card 2-drawer) had sealed bearings. The one you have is very interesting.

[Bentworker]

That is the brand of them. There are four units that stack on top of each other, with locking wings. The drawers are about 9" wide by 16" deep. You can place something in the drawer that is 4 1/4" tall.

The drawers are full extension, but they are metal on metal or metal on plastic pad with no bearings whatsoever.

[spro]

We can look up "Art Metal" company but I didn't have to do this. I've been buying metal cabinets for as long as I had reason to store things in them. Yours seems to be the "transitional" model before the bearings. Before that, slides were lubed with paraffin wax and had those same type pulls. I can see that a light film of oil plus regular dust could be a lapping compound to metal. Just interesting.

[spro]

Somehow it comes to file cabinets. I was surprised the many "Art Metal" cabinets are in this house and garage. I didn't pay attention to the logo until this thread. Most are beat up stuff without bearing slides but they serve. I had assumed they were Steelcraft or no name but there were so many types which are Art Metal of Jamestown N.Y.
I searched images on Bing and didn't see one as owned by O.P.

[scmods]

ah! Jamestown. Brick streets, climate off the end of lake Erie. Scandinavian heritage, I think. Went to AVM voting machine school there back during Jimmy Carter. Nice city, but I digress. AGAIN

Anyway, when we switched from wooden to aluminum ladders in my FD (Watertown, NY). We tried a number of slide lubricants before settling on Osborn moly-lube. If you are familiar with how the fire service does things like ladders, you first remove all the old lubricant, clean the channels and then re apply at regular intervals, usually depending on how much of an impression the Batallion Chiwf wants to make with the higher-ups. Well, guess what? The Moly-lube is really difficult to remove. In fact, we discovered that the dry film not only continues to lubricate, but does not collect dirt either. just wipe down and reapply to any thin spots. The LPS Force 842 product does a similar job, and is easier to find in single cans.

Does a nice job!

Bill Walck