Tungsten Disulfide lube

[budster]

I'm looking for an opinion on tungsten disulfide (WS2) for dry lube rules. What can anyone tell me about their experience with WS2, and is anyone using it alone or in combination with other powder toppings after it cures, or with oil toppings for outlaw rules races? I saw an old post from '08 somewhere regarding WS2 but see no further discussion - is no one using this and if not, for what reason? Also interested in knowing how it compares to "coach's secret lube" and if they may be the same thing since they are both a dry lube that applies wet, then cures. What do you know? Thanks for sharing guys - this board is full of good info from good people willing to share the wealth of knowledge!

[MaxV]

WS2 is a powered lube, similar in appearance to graphite. In my testing it was inferior to graphite. See:
www.maximum-velocity.com/pinewood_derby_times_v8_i10.htm#feature
(I referred to WS2 as TS2 to simplify matters)

[ff1062]

I couldn't believe it when I read the replies to this post. Tungsten disulfide works. We used it last year and beat every car in my son's pack. The problem is: people don't know how to use it, so they use it the wrong way, then say it gave them poor results...well of course it did. I read the tests done by Maximum Velocity, which prove nothing, because the tungsten disulfide was applied as if it was graphite. Tungsten disulfide is not graphite, you cannot apply it in the same manner. Tungsten disulfide needs to be bonded to a surface for it to work as a lubricant. First we polished our axles in the normal fashion, then we placed our axles in an old pill bottle along with a few (maybe 20) BBs and a small scoop of tungsten disulfide. We wrapped the pill bottle in rags until the rags were about the same diameter as the inside of my son's rock tumbler. We placed the whole thing inside the rock tumbler, with the pill bottle running the same direction as the tumbler's barrel, then ran the rock tumbler overnight. In the morning the axles were coated with a translucent gray film that would not come off. Before the race, we lubricated our axles with Max-V graphite. The graphite served as our primary lubricant through most of the races, but when the graphite wore down to almost nothing on everyone else's axles, we still had the tungsten disulfide to keep our car going fast. In fact, our car continued to get faster as the races progressed.