Coolant Opinions Wanted

Bought a VMC a little while ago and am getting it up and running. When I bought the machine, the interior was absolutely filthy. Coolant was the most disgusting I have ever seen in my career.

I want to run a coolant in the machine for a few months to clean all the crap out, then get a good coolant for long term.

I have worked at several shops with several different types of coolant. I have used several Blaser products, but personally I was never thrilled with them. There are a lot of reasons that were probably associated with the shop, so that may be unfair to Blaser.

Used an awesome clear coolant in the Hermle 5 axis, but I cannot find its name anywhere in my notes and cannot remember the name.

Used another coolant that was pinkish/orange when mixed that smelled and WORKED amazing. Guy had had it so long couldn't remember what it was...

Another shop I worked at used BetaSol which was OK....

So, called the local place I buy all my petroleum products from. I buy all my oils, greases, fuel, just about everything. They carry Schaeffers products, along with most of the big names. They do not KNOW coolants though, they offered to put me in touch with whoever I wanted and they would order it for me.

They outright offered Chevron's Soluble Oil B. Does anyone have an opinion on this coolant?

Has anyone used any of the Schaeffers coolant products?

If you do not like either of those, where are you buying your coolants from? Everywhere I look online, oils/coolants etc are DOUBLE what the local place charges for the SAME PRODUCT.

Always good to have a bucket or 2 of Soluble kicking around. Good for bumping up
the concentration when you run out of real coolant, and good for use in the bandsaw when
its leaking all over the floor.

Chevron soluble (I have 3 buckets full in the shop) SUCKS as a full time coolant.. It does
go rancid after a while.. Not so much rancid, but musty.. Stuff sucks. Its also just
"soluble oil" it doesn't (or at least I think it doesn't) have all the fancy dancy stuff
that makes coolant much more than coolant.

I suggest you contact your favorite local machine tool dealer.. They all sell coolant, and
if they are smart, they don't sell CRAP. They want to sell you a $100k machine, they aren't
going to piss you off by selling you shitty stinky coolant.. There is also the bonus that they
can act as a middle man between you and the coolant company. If there is a problem, they will(should)
go to bat for you. Its all about SUPPORT SUPPORT SUPPORT..

Save the Chevron dealer for kitty litter, waylube and hydraulic oil.

Edit: local machine tool dealer will also usually deliver when they come calling on you to sell you that
$100k machine.

Just my experience...

I've used Blasocut 2000 for 17 years. Lathe, mill grinder.
Short stint with Hangsterfers in one of them, switched back rather quickly.
Then, out of the blue, all of my machines started getting incredibly nasty, oily residue all over the place.
Parts couldn't be cleaned, the paint got brown - unwashably so - ...
Tried everything I know or given to get rid of it, until one day just gave up and booted Blaser.

Switched to Chemetall TechCool 35035BN.
First, gave all machines a 3+ hour rinse with SumpShine ( also Chemetall ), then filled with the new stuff.
It was about a year or so ago.
At first, everything was well. Then I started seeing a mild resurgence of the slimy residue in couple of the machines, but after a week or so
they cleared up completely and been that way ever since.
I am guessing that was due to some nook releasing a bit of leftover bacteria that temporarily "infected" the new coolant, but apparently
it was able to deal with it and get itself back to normal.
So far, I have seen no difference in tool life, no rusting, no discoloration (quite opposite, some of the brownishness is fading away ).
Price of the coolant is on par with Blaser, smells OK, does not bother anyone's skin.

That's all I have.

Thanks you both for you each input.

Bob I've read a few of your past posts on coolant and they were all informative. I will look into some other coolants. I really like the local place, I buy my cutting oils from them and their support is fantastic. They have no hesitation getting someone on the phone to answer questions. If they don't know they are happy to find out. Big enough they can order most anything, but small enough to still be local. I can call and they sorta remember me from last time. But, if Soluble B sucks. . then I don't want it.

The Mazak sales rep did mention he wanted to stop by someday. . .

SD, I will look into Chemetall. One thing I did not like about the Blaser product was everything at the shop I used to work that used it rusted. The grinders were the worst.

I considered just machining dry, and plumbing air into my coolant lines. I run most all my manual machines dry except for heavy drilling and tapping. I learned what abuse really was at a past shop. Boss told you exactly how you were to run the machines. At the end of a long cut in CPM, a 3/4" carbide rougher would be glowing bright red almost orange.

The Mazak sales rep did mention he wanted to stop by someday. . .

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Always a good idea to have a good relationship with your local dealer. They have all
the good gossip. The GOOD ones bring beer. They can tip you off to local machines that
are coming up for sale. Occasionally they can tip you off to new customers. If you are
lucky, once in a while they might have a mini "trade show".

And when it comes to coolant.. You all of a sudden aren't the guy that uses half a barrel a year.
You've got somebody going to bat for you that uses 100's of barrels a year. Somebody that wants to
make you happy so you drop 6 figures on a new Mazak.

INVITE them in.. You might get a few free buckets if you're lucky.

Fal Grunt said:

I have worked at several shops with several different types of coolant. I have used several Blaser products, but personally I was never thrilled with them. There are a lot of reasons that were probably associated with the shop, so that may be unfair to Blaser.

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hy Fal Grunt / i use Blaser ... so far so good lathe and mill

any time i must wash something, i simply turn the coolant and wash it

when i clean chucks, i put a rubber carpet inside the mill, turn the coolant on, and all grease will go ...

also it is not smelling, is not affecting hands ... for me is ok

We installed a Hermle a little over a year ago, and with their recommendation we put in Blaser blasocut BC 940 SW, which is the updated version of the 2000 series. It is a milky white coolant in color. It worked very well, not smelly, did not leave a bad residue, cleaned very nice and it lasted about a year, which I don't think is too bad for sump life. No idea on cost.

It really depends on what materials you run, water quality, frequency of maintenance, etc. that apply to you. We tried several synthetics before settling on one, my experience only your mileage may vary:

Rustlick Powerchip 2000:
The good-Excellent sump life, good tramp oil separation, good performance on ferrous and stainless. Smells good, rinses easily.
The bad-Lacks the lubricity of a water soluble, takes paint off of vises, not great on aluminum, discolors 7075. Had to run higher than recommended concentration to prevent rust. It makes me sneeze, maybe an allergy?

Cimcool Cimtech 495:
The good: Excellent service-they took water samples, looked at our applications, made a recommendation, and gave us free sample(cleaner and 2-5 gallon pails)to try. Better performance on all aluminum than Powerchip, no discoloration on 7075, more lubricity than Powerchip. Excellent sump life and tramp oil separation. No allergy for me.
The bad: Have to run higher than recommended concentration to prevent rust. Seems to have softened the gaskets on the rotary. Less lubricity than a water soluable.
Gets sticky when it dries.

Master Chemical C320:
The good: Good performance on aluminum, no staining 7075. Runs at a lower concentration than the other two synthetics I have tried, saving $. Good sump life and tramp oil separation. More lubricity than the other 2, better for tapping with coolant. No rust at recommended concentration, but we still run it just a little "rich". No allergy or skin problems. Good sump life and tramp oil separation.
The bad: Milky white appearance. Initial odor unpleasant, but it goes away.

pmack, I assume you settled on the Master Chemical C320 then?

softening of the gaskets in your rotary would be very concerning to me. I have some old tooling I use, and do not want to see it damaged. I will be investing in a 4th axis as soon as I find one that fits/works with this dinosaur.

Bobw, called the mazak rep, he is going to stop by and meet me, look at the shop, and he was excited about the idea of getting me into a nice used unit. No coolant though. He recommended Cimcool.

I have settled on the C320 for now. It has been in one mill for over a year at this point. Just changing other two mills over. When you first mix it, it is a pale yellow, then it becomes milky looking over time. No apparent loss in performance though. The machine it has been in has a minimum oil system that we run tap magic in, so it gets more tramp oil than the other mills. I wanted one coolant for all the machines. I realize there are compromises with anything being used universally. It works well in the surface grinder and saws too. TBD on the CNC lathe.

I do mostly Tool & Die work, no production work, though I have two jobs in the shop that are 50-100 pcs, territory I am not familiar with.

I run everything from 1018 to CPM, though if I picked the top three materials it would be 1018, 4140 PH, and A2.

pmack said:

.... water quality,

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I think this is a frequently overlooked yet important factor in coolant selection and preparation.

I started looking at switching to a different coolant because the one I was using was separating out a oily scum layer in the tank on a grease lubed (minimal oil contamintion) machine. On the advice of a tech rep from the manufacturer I started using water from a reverse osmosis filter to mix it. The separation/oily scum ceased to be a problem. My shop water is from a well and has high iron and manganese content and that did not play nice with the coolant. The RO unit was purchased at a local home improvement store for less than $200, so not a big cost issue.

I use Trimsol 585XT, works ok, reasonably priced, as with any coolant you need to use a skimmer. The only downside is if you don't watch the concentrations it can leave rust spots on the table, 5% is too low, 8% works better.

Works ok with 6061/delrin/steel

Been using Trim C320 for 25 years now. I do mostly aluminum and plastic but some tool steels including A2 and have never had a problem. It will stay a clear amber if you don't have any oil or grease getting in it, really nice. Extremely low carry off especially if you rinse your chips with makeup water. My makup coolant is mixed around .2% which can be too much, very easy to get it too rich. What minor issues I am having I think is from my well water, RO system is imminent, Amazon has some pretty cheap units. No reason to change so I keep using it.

Schaeffer Metalworking Fluids - Specialized Lubricants

I appreciate the input guys.

For reference, here is the Schaeffers products.

I now use Trim microsol 690XT, the high pressure improved version of the 585xt. Loving it.
Big improvement over the cimcool qualstar C I was using.

My vote is Blaser BC935SW and use DI water (buy a $300 filtration system so you always have DI water on hand).

We run Hocut 795-MD. It's been great, we have been using it for years. Sump life is awesome, doesn't eat paint or skin, works well for tapping, runs in all materials, and it's pretty forgiving of hard water. It also rejects tramp oils pretty well, if you have a major blow out of a bar feeder it will emulsify hydraulic oils but even then it doesn't cause bacteria growth problems.

We went to Trim Microsol 585XT semi synthetic micro emulsion about 8 years ago and all our funky coolant and sump livers problems went away. Long sump life, designed for cast iron and titanium but plays well with everything including plastic parts. Rinses off clean in water and doesn't cause a problem with residue on phenolic parts that get glued later. Smells like cake batter to me. Very clean in the machine. we run it 5-10%

We run a lot of aluminum and tool steel.

Had one person get the concentrate under his ring and didn't notice it and got a burn from it, but I think most undiluted water solubilizes are going to do that. Operator safety was an important issues when we were evaluating coolants and this one looked pretty good. We're currently running it in four mills and some saws.

Does any one else have a problem like this... I might be overthinking this one but just putting it out there.

The scenario is Haas vf3 with grease ways so no oilers. Blasocut BC940, Hi-feed milling steel which puts out quite a bit of heat with those chips.

Since there is no cooling in the spindle other than coolant circulating I keep the coolant on but turned off at the nozzle and use air blow. That means the coolant still shoots out under the splash guard to help carry the chips to the auger. It also might help with thermal movement because it keeps the machine cooler not that I have quantifiable data (Haas tolerances anyways). But when I add all this up I get a really oily coolant. It may show signs of it after even 1 hr or so of milling.

Im guessing the heat is separating the oil in the coolant on a molecular level and it is making an oily film on everything. Even though no oil per say is in the machine enclosures other than the mixed coolant. If I am running just drills and things that keep the heat out of the coolant it lasts a year and works great.