"Hey pp you are making me feel guilty, sort of muted by the fact that Charles has considered a similar approach. It's not like I was cutting up live animals."
Had to laugh. There's got to be a small twinge of "guilt" when that hacksaw blade hits the metal. But look at it this way. It will now have a productive, active, "life", whereas before it would have languished in a box somewhere and probably wound up in a landfill.
and (... in regards to lubes "solidifying"...):
"It seems that this comment is applicable to microscope stages as well!"
Absolutely! Anyplace a lube is used. I picked up an old Olympus BHA not too long ago for a very modest price. I primarily wanted the trinocular head that was on it, but when I received it, the entire microscope was in spectacular shape. So I decided to make is a "user". But everything that was "greased" was frozen tight. Fortunately nobody had tried to force the focus, so the gears were OK. But it took a long time to get it "free". The plastic gear on the condenser rack was not as fortunate, and that was cracked.
Some of these places do need to be lubed, not only for "wear" reasons but for function as well. For example, the focus gear-trains rely on a proper "damping" grease to get that nice "feel" and function. Usually you can find a lube that will work fine in a hobby shop, automotive, or hardware store. The lubes many repair people and re-furb aficionados use are made by Nye (but they are pricey!)
If you need to apply a lube in an enclosed space where there are optics (such as the prism slides inside a trinocular head) the lube used should have very low "outgassing" so that the optical parts don't accumulate a thin "film" on their surface.
Charlie
