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Best "All around" coolant for lathe and mill

jackalope

Titanium
Joined
Oct 8, 2004
Location
St. Peters, MO
I am not trying to start a thread in which everyone jumps in with specific applications, etc. I am looking for an all round coolant (flood type) for use on a lathe as well as V Mill when coolant is needed.
Any decent ones that don't cause a whole lot of problems with smell, corrosion, etc.
Just general imput.
I have been looking at KoolMist types but want imput from real world machinists. I am NOT a machinist so I need your imput. Thank you very much.--Grant
 
I like Castol Cleadedge 6519 (carried by MSC) for grinding and cutting. As with most or all water soluables, just bubble some air into it with an off the shelf bubbler such as a Zebra Skimmmer bubbler (sold by J&L) or a few gentle shots a day from your air system. The stink is from Anerobic bacteria - give it air and they die. If you want to go the biocide route, I have used Bioban where I used to work. I mix the coolant to a #3 on my spectrometer and it does the job very well. I imagine everybody ahs their favorite, this one is mine.
 
The shop where I work uses Trim SOL - a soluble oil coolant for lathe and mill work (both manual and CNC). No problems with corrosion and not too much problem with stinking everything up either. We do use the sump deodorizing tablets with it in our Quick Turns just as a precaution since they sometimes sit idle for a while.
 
depends on what you do, and how often you do it.

had no problems with Clearedge at previous job.

Blasocut (blazer) is supposed to be good, but harder to get - have to order.

I use trim E206 (master chemical)- for a couple of reasons.
It's mid price range, and I can send someone after a 5 gal pail if I run out.

TrimSol is soluable oil- I'd stay away from that.

Whatever you use, if it sits idle most of the time, use some means to keep it from going rancid. You can use a timer on pump and just have it cycle - I hot wired the coolant pump on a mill with 150 gal coolant tank, worked great.
We were having to drain & clean tank, replace coolant almost every set up- stunk up the entire building.

Trim has a good web site, and I'm sure most of them do. I went for the trim because that's the best I found local.
 
I second the Trim E206. Trim SOL is fine as well. In a misting situation, I've had a mixed gallon sit on the side of my mill for about 2 months, after that long things can get a little stinky and irratate your eyes. Add about 3/4-1 cup per gallon, and that seems to be a good mixture.
 
Same here on the mister situation.
After it has sat for 2 months, take the top off the resevoir and look at the stuff growing on top of the coolant.
Then decide "do i want to breathe, and essentially eat, that"?
 
It would cost another buck or so but some of the bottled spring water has extremely low bacterial counts ... and then there's distilled water.

Would either of these be worthwhile using when a mix will only see intermittent use? Den
 
Hello,

I have no problems with Valenite Turn-Tech in flood or spray misters. Sets in misters for months on end with no problem. Same in coolant tank which I may not run for weeks.

Brian
 
I certainly am not a coolant expert or chemist,
but this is an area I've taken serious over the years.
One place I worked had 2 brand new 8 spindle screw machines wiped out because of a reaction between the cutting fluid and the 12L14 material. EVERY bearing ruined.
Worked (for a very short while) at a CNC shop where the lathe operators chewed tobacco and spit in the machine.

Skin irritation.
Breathing problems (chronic colds, etc.)

The better products have stuff added to kill certain bacteria, I dont think you need to use distilled water, but it wouldn't hurt.
And for that reason, you shouldn't "super shock" with clorox when the coolant goes bad.
Pump it out, clean sump with what the coolant mfg says, start over.

I think its a bad design to have the sump so out of sight, and I'm working on a chip-guard/coolant system for my machine that's more maintance freindly.
 
The better products have stuff added to kill certain bacteria,
I'll disagree with this one, I spent about 4hours with a Blaser rep, his name is Uli, A swiss guy selling Blaser Swiss Lube, go figure.

Anyways, this guy was passionate about coolant and stuffed my head full of more coolant related goodies than I could possibly remember, if you run into him at a trade show, he's a really neat guy to talk to.

Back to the coolant, most good coolants, not the crap that you buy from the floor wax/toilet paper supply company won't use a biocide. Several reasons that I figured, first think of natural bacterial balance, a stream, a river, a fish tank. With a biocide, your killing the bacteria that will keep your sump in a natural balance(bacteria eating wastes of other bacteria, and the waste is what stinks), and eventually, since bacteria are adaptive little critters, they will decide that your biocide is now food, now you have one or two bacteria living in your sump, not a nice neutral balance of bacteria, and you get stink.

For the OP, don't skimp on your coolant, buy a good coolant that is actually supported, you don't want to call with a coolant problem and end up buying a pallet of hand soap. Keep it moving a little bit, turn on the pumps 15 minutes a day or use as others have suggested, fish tank type stuff. I used to have what If I remember right was called a power head, little submersable pump that moved like 175 gallons an hour for $35. Out here in the Southwest, I've used swamp cooler pumps, $10 for the cheapies, though not completely submersable.
 
Agood friend of mine that i"ve dealt with for years has one type of w/sol name of 795-B.

He is a distributer for Houghton Int'l.
Stuff is great in the mills and turning centers, along with the misc. shop equip.
Nice smell to it, no dermititus, And truly,I've not had a rancidity problem in over a year. And believe me I've not been easy with it. It could sit in the sump for weeks on end.
PM me for details.
5Gals ,55 gals.


jack
 
I'm still following all the imput here. All good stuff. I will spend the $$ on a quality product so long as it meets my needs that I mentioned above: basic all around coolant, can sit for prolonged periods (up to two weeks), and is safe for bearings and other vital machine components that would be exposed to the solution.
 








 
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