Thanks to everyone who replied!
This is a summary in case anyone is wondering about the same:
1. A clear majority of replies was along the lines of "just buy pre-greased
plates".
2. Next in popularity was self-greasing with Dow Corning high vacuum grease.
3. Several replies suggested mixing petrolatum (Vaseline) with mineral oil
to achieve desired viscosity. Or just using petrolatum alone instead of
grease while it is warm and melted.
4. Interestingly enough, not a single reply mentioned using any of the
immersion oils for this purpose. This makes me wonder why Hampton has them
in the catalog.
So I played with mixing mineral oil and petroleum jelly today. 15% w/w
jelly is very thick, almost solid at room temperature. 10% is still
considerably thicker than mineral oil alone but thin enough to be
spreadable using dropper bottle. In terms of the stability of the seal, it
seems to be a definite improvement over pure mineral oil. The easiest way
to mix is in the beaker on a 60C water bath and mixing with glass rod
followed, when completely melted, by a magnetic bar on a stirrer plate.
Huge amount of the air that gets trapped is easy to remove by applying some
vacuum to the glass bottle containing the mixture while it is warm (fully
transparent).
- Dima
