Telescope Reviews: I love the smell of (Synta) grease in the morning

I have cleaned and regreased a number of Chinese GEMs, and recall the number of CN threads bemoaning the so-called "Synta grease", even though the GEMs I rebuilt were by Bosma.

Then I stripped and cleaned a couple of Vixen Polaris' from the 1980s. Same grease!

Imagine my surprise when I stripped a 45-year old Towa GEM and found the same, foul-smelling tar as on the much younger Chinese and Japanese mounts.

This demonstrates that the grease used is NOT unique to the Chinese. I suspect it predates Synta, so perhaps we should not call it "Synta grease".

Who makes this tar?

I find that brake cleaner removes the tar lickety-spit, but be careful of getting the cleaner on painted surfaces as it will remove that as well.