Stripping an action down, degreasing it and applying fresh lubricants is always going to be the ‘gold standard’ – but as for there being no guarantees that oil dripped onto a pillar (post) won’t coat the whole length of the rod...it depends.
In simple terms, if there’s an air gap between the rod and the bore of the key barrel, oil is going to be sucked into that gap by the pumping action that occurs when a key is actuated. That’s a guarantee. It’s physics.
However, there could be issues that cause this not to happen – the first of which is that the action is so very badly worn that it negates the pumping action. I have never seen an action that badly worn, ever – and if it was that worn then any oil is going work its way down the barrel by the force of gravity alone. And it wouldn’t be worth oiling such an action anyway because it’s never going to work properly until it’s fixed.
The second is that the barrel is gunged up. Now, I see plenty of gunged up barrels and know empirically that a spot of oil on the pillars will still work its way in. It’s a technique that comes in handy when dealing with older Ultra-Cheap horns that were lubed with some really weird Chinese grease...which dries out in the space of a year or so. In such cases I use a lighter oil than my standard lube.
But everyone likes a real-world test, right? So here’s a doozy.
This old Eubel flute has been kicking around the workshop for years. All the lubrication has dried out, leaving the keys very sluggish in action.
I picked the worst example – the low C...which is so gummy it won’t even open under the power of its spring.
It’s going to be a tough test for the oiling technique as it is but I’m not going to make it any easier by using a light oil. It’s getting synthetic gear oil that’s been stirred with a red Sharpie (so that we can see what’s going on). Plus it’s about 10 degrees C in the workshop which means the oil won’t be quite so free-flowing.
So a drop of oil is placed on the upper end of the barrel and the key is then worked for a period of time – which will be until I see evidence of oil at the lower end of the barrel.
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The key freed up considerably after a couple of minutes but it took around 12 minutes before I saw any evidence of oil between the lower end of the barrel and the pillar – at which point I unscrewed the rod just a few millimetres and wiped it with a tissue and noted the red/orangey stain from the tinted oil.
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So, a gummed up key; oil applied at only one end of the pillar; very little pumping action due to the size of the key and the weak spring; a moderately heavy oil – and still it made it from one end of the key to the other.
And yeah, no guarantees – but by heck you really do have go some to find an action on which this technique won’t work. Let me know when you do...
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I'm easily swayed!
