Wipe
Wipe turns up in 2 fields: tribology, plumbing. Here is what it means to the people in each one.
Wipe in tribology
To smear the soft babbitt lining of a plain bearing when the oil film fails, ruining the bearing.
Shop verb, also used as a noun, for the failure in which a journal contacts its babbitt lining, heats it near melting and drags the soft metal around the bore, leaving a smeared, displaced surface. Causes include loss of oil supply, low viscosity, overload, misalignment and starting heavy machines without lift oil. A wipe shows up as a sudden bearing temperature spike and a shift in shaft position or vibration.
"Lost oil pressure for maybe twenty seconds and it wiped both journals on the ID fan."
Wipe in plumbing
To form a smooth, rounded joint on lead pipe by manually shaping semi-molten solder with a cloth pad.
A traditional plumbing technique used to join lead pipes or connect lead to brass fittings. The plumber pours molten solder over the joint and uses a greased cloth pad, called a wiping cloth, to catch and mold the cooling solder into a thick, bulbous seal before it hardens. It requires immense skill to maintain the solder at the exact plastic temperature where it can be shaped without melting a hole through the lead pipe.
"My grandfather used to wipe lead joints with a moleskin pad and a pot of fifty-fifty solder."