I read through the post, and the way it was written, I was expecting it to be an extended analogy for something else. Does "Lubricate Your Keyholes" mean that you need to plan efficient ingress/egress strategies for your cloud services?
But no, this was not an extended analogy. This is really just about applying lubricant to physical keyholes.
While it is possible that this shaves off a couple of seconds every time you use your key, there are a few things it does not fully take into account.
Unless you already have the lubricant at your disposal and understand how to properly use it, you need to take into account the cost and time to acquire it and the time to research how to apply it properly and then actually do the task.
That time needs to be subtracted from the time you expect to save via the intervention. And the thing about time is that its value is not static. The author admits as much: "But some seconds are worth more than others, and some seconds have little worth at all." But the author gets the proportion wrong. In the vast majority of cases, you'll likely find that whether it takes you 1 second or 4 seconds to unlock a door, it makes no practical difference to you. Sure, in an emergency, ever second counts, but outside of that (hopefully rare) case, I don't see high ROI.
Funny story, but my family owns a mountain cabin. The lock on the front door is 100% no operable because of the elements and lack of lubrication. To make matters worse the screws that hold the doorknob on are also fully seized meaning that it's going to take heroic measures to actually fix. You can open the door from the inside just not using the key. So we've resorted for the last couple of years to just using the back door.
I'm not sure lubricating the keyway is my actual problem, I think the the plug itself is bound but yaknow.. maintence is important. Lube your machines.
I actually agree with the author that the difference of 1s vs 4s for something like unlocking a door is meaningful. Anything that I need to do multiple times per day that I feel should be basically instant will annoy me (slightly) if it takes longer than instant. I could see an annoying lock falling under this for me.
It's not about time saved (for me), it's about reducing frustration.
In my previous flat I did hit that issue, after lubricating it the issues disappeared but the last few weeks before that I had to both jiggle the key and turn it quite forcefully to get it to work (and getting the key in the keyway was its own challenge), on bad days 5s was actually lowballing it, I really feared I would be stuck outside once or twice.
I've lubricated many keyholes in my 39 years on this planet and never spent more time than going "I need graphite lube, I have graphite lube. I will squirt graphite lube into key hole. I will come back in 3 years and squirt graphite lube in key hole again." I guess at one point 20 years ago I went "how do I lube a lock? oh cool, graphite lube." Then the rest.
You would have an aneuryism if you saw how often touchball mouse owners lubed their mice. Probably daily. I literally keep a little graphite lube tube on my desk.
Graphite lube is not a rare or uncommon household lubricant. I could've also used dielectric grease or silicon lube potentially.
All 3 of which I have in my garage and I'm in my 30s. And I rent. An apartment. Downtown.
You're right though, that classic WD40 is intended to get mechanisms unstuck and de-moisturised, it does have lubricating properties but is a very light penetrating oil so it should be followed by actual lubrication of the relevant parts.
In fact misused as a lubricant I assume classic WD40 can flush out the actual lubricant, which leads to making things worse over time.
The key is that it’s MIS-used. WD40 is excellent when used properly - as a penetrating solvent for removing stuck things. But not as a lubricant otherwise.
> I was surprised by the effectiveness of this intervention. An average of 2.442 seconds saved per entry. If I enter that door every day for a year, that amounts to around 15 minutes
Should have considered how much time will be lost lubricating the keyholes (including buying the lubricant, applying it, storing it and so on)
> Now, you might argue that the number of seconds required to research, acquire, and implement keyhole lubricant would easily outweigh the amount saved through optimal key insertion — and you'd probably be right.
The feeling that you are keeping things in working order, and reap the benefit every time you unlock your door, isn't something you can capture in just the time accounting.
That said, it might make for a better article to just mention that it took less than a minute to squeeze graphite into the keyhole, as well as an estimate of how often it needs to be done.
I used spray silicone lubricant on a door lock that was hard to get a key in and out of and it was a massive improvement - highly recommended. I didn't time the improvement but it was night and day.
There's been no problem with the lock "gathering dust", so no need to get graphite powder for this job.
I used to rent an apartment that had two locks which opened with the same key. Both would gradually become harder to use until one of them eventually broke, at which point I began to regularly lubricate the other. It lasted past the end of my rental agreement and was much easier to use when lubricated.
Avid readers of practical betterments should note: here I refer to the classical meaning of the word keyhole: a hole you put your key in and not my own definition a hole you put in your key.
If some of the lubricant gets around the pins, then one is lubricating the hole in the hole you put your key in.
I take it you're not familar with Prop 65? In California, you'll see that everywhere thanks to a well-intended but counterproductive ballot measure that introduced steep liability for anything that could possibly cause cancer at all, even if only egregiously mishandled. It's even on packages of food now!
It still surprises me that after 38 years of this obviously ineffective and wasteful proposition, no group has gotten around to putting a repeal on the ballot.
In California, ballot propositions are a form of direct democracy, and changes often require a referendum. Who has the time or money to campaign to convince voters to remove cancer warnings?
They are. Most locksmiths hate graphite. The two lubes most used and recommended by locksmiths are Houdini and Tri-Flow. The latter is available in some hardware stores (it’s in the lube section of my local ACE Hardware), and while you can special order Houdini online, you can also buy it locally under its alternate name Super Slick Slick Stuff. I’ve seen it in my local Lowes, not sure if Home Depot also has it now.
I was positive until the very end that this was just some tortured metaphor for finding a cloud provider with lower data egress fees, or something like that. And then the article just ended.
I'd love to know where this myth came from. Every single test i've seen or done myself have had no issues with it in door locks (fixed a problem and stayed fixed for decades) or on bicycle chains yet you can't have an internet thread about lubricant without somone saying "WD40 ISN'T A LUBRICANT" even though it is most certainly a lubricant.
I feel like this is one of those internet myths someone once said and now everyone just blindly repeats.
My only thought is that there's cheaper generic brands but regardless it's a great tool for the job.
It is a good enough lubricant. In my experience with door hinges they stay non-creaky for much longer with technical vaseline though.
Btw, about a year ago I read that copper grease is absolutely the best for this purpose but I'm still waiting for a hinge to become squeaky so that I can test that.
I know it's for keeping water away. I use it for that purpose on my swords. But why isn't it a lubricant? Maybe it's not the best, but it can serve that purpose.
It wasn't intended to be a lubricant. When it "dries" it gets gummy. Quoting Wikipedia[1]
The spray, composed of various hydrocarbons, was originally designed to be used by Convair to protect the outer skin of the Atlas missile from rust and corrosion.[11][12] This outer skin also functioned as the outer wall of the missile's delicate balloon tanks.
Sure, but if you don't know what you are doing, and have a need for lubricating something at home, on a bike, or on a car, you are MUCH better off with a oil, graphite, teflon, or grease.
Sure professionals use WD40 when appropriate. Sure WD40 lubricates great, for seconds to minutes (before the volatilies evaporate off, thus the WD40 smell), less well after that (somewhat gummy residue) and might well stop a creak. But won't lubricate nearly as well as oil or grease or last as long.
It lubricates for a very short time, then most of it evaporates & leaves behind a slightly sticky residue that helps prevent rust. It dissolves most lubricants that would stay in place for longer (greases) and cleans them off of surfaces.
Surely, there is some context where WD-40 is just fine.
I do note that lubrication is actually complex. Soap feels plenty slick in general, but if I try to shave with it, certain soaps give very poor results. So, of course, not everything slick and oily is going to work for lubricating machines.
But when I rub soap on wood screws, it works just fine in that context!
If you take a properly lubricated widget and as part of regular maintenance you lubricate it, it's well lubricated.
If you take a properly lubricated widget and as part of regular maintenance you spray WD-40 on it, it's less lubricated, might be fine for a bit, but it's mostly a cleaner and water displacer. Ideal in some situations for cleaning, before you apply a lubricant. WD40 does leave something behind, maybe better than metal on metal, but it's gummy and pretty far from what I'd consider a lubricant.
Sure in some cases chewing gum, soil, or sand can reduce friction, I wouldn't call them lubricants though.
But no, this was not an extended analogy. This is really just about applying lubricant to physical keyholes.
While it is possible that this shaves off a couple of seconds every time you use your key, there are a few things it does not fully take into account.
Unless you already have the lubricant at your disposal and understand how to properly use it, you need to take into account the cost and time to acquire it and the time to research how to apply it properly and then actually do the task.
That time needs to be subtracted from the time you expect to save via the intervention. And the thing about time is that its value is not static. The author admits as much: "But some seconds are worth more than others, and some seconds have little worth at all." But the author gets the proportion wrong. In the vast majority of cases, you'll likely find that whether it takes you 1 second or 4 seconds to unlock a door, it makes no practical difference to you. Sure, in an emergency, ever second counts, but outside of that (hopefully rare) case, I don't see high ROI.