Grease, oil, or put nothing on the pins and bars of old HHM safes?

[Pete]

I just got a a new (old) HHM safe. I will show photos when my batteries get done charging. Anyway...I just got done scraping off what looks like hardened grease crud from around the pins and some inside bars behind the access panel. It seems old enough to have been done when the safe was made. Did they apply grease? Would a light oil be better? Using either grease or oil would attract dirt. Since the parts don't move that much, maybe it is better to put nothing on the parts and just leave them dry. What is best? I'm not talking about inside the box where the combo rings the dial are, just the steel riveted bars and where the bolts contact the door, (the mechanism attached to the handle).

[Doug MacQueen]

Lubrication is often used to make up for a poorly fitted boltwork. Ideally the mechanism should work freely prior to any lube added. The same is true in lockwork. The amount of pressure and speed on the mating parts is what creates the friction for a given combination of materials and therefore the wear rates. Speed isn't of much concern here. Type of lube used would then be based more or less on the pressures seen. There are many cases where no lube was applied at the factory and I have seen many 100 year old safes without boltwork lube and they are still working fine. Doug

[Pete]

Thanks for the info Doug. Yes, it seems where the various parts move, they move so little, they wouldn't wear out after even hundreds of thousands of openings.