I found the source of the creaking noise! Greasing dropouts?

[Dan B]

Last night while changing the front tyre I applied a small amount of grease to the dropouts and the QR skewer, and now I don't get creaking from the front end. So that's nice, because I was beginning to wonder whether I am just irredeemably bad at building wheels

Question for the assembled experts (and whoever else): I'm assuming that greasing these surfaces is not going to make the wheel slide out more easily, and my basis for the assumption is that my saddle has never yet slid all the way down into the seat tube despite that I grease the seat post. But why is this? Seems counterintuitive that making something more slippery doesn't make it more likely to slip out

 

[Sharky]

I had the front end creaking and greasing the QR's resolved, but can't comment on the science behind it.

 

[Yellow Saddle]

You are putting a Elastoplast on a cancerous tumour. A creaking drop-out indicates that your skewer is too weak to do the job properly. There are two types of drop-outs in this world - Shimano/Campagnolo and in the other camp, rubbish. A drop-out should be extremely tight and the cam should be internal. We have written about this before, quite recently actually. Search for internal cam skewer and you'll find the link.