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Non-Water-Based Coolant choices?

Sean S

Titanium
Joined
Dec 20, 2000
Location
Coos Bay, OR
Hi all,
Because of my lack of machinist skills, I like to use coolant because it gives me a better finish and is forgiving.
I've been using water based soluble oil and it works fine.
However, the water based coolant has a habit of trying to stain my machines...which is something I cannot deal with.

It has been suggested to me to use a non-water coolant and I am wondering what suggestions are out there.

So far, ATF has been suggested with a remote chance of fire hazard.

Since it will live in the coolant pan of the machines, it has to be "general purpose" and not be too harsh on paint.

Any other suggestions?

Thanks
 
Sean:
Since you are concerned about staining the machine with the coolant may I suggest checking the concentration of coolant to water. This will require a coolant refractometer. Yeah, I know, not everyone owns one of these, so see if one of your buddies has one you can borrow. Check the container your coolant came in for the proper mix ratio. If the mix is too lean the rust inhibitor that is present in most water-mix coolants are not adequate to protect metal surfaces. Also check for the presence of sulphur, you know, good ol' brimstone! Sulphur will cause nice ugly black stains, esepecially on cast iron.

I did notice a product in the MSC catalogue, page 1970, 2002 edition by Master Chemical called Trim 0 M287 touted as a non-staining cutting oil. I have no first-hand knowledge of this product,but the words non-staining caught my eye. That provides a tradeoff of non-stain for messiness. Of course on the other hand most oil coolants do have a measure of lubricity, so that is a plus for machine ways. I don't know if this helps but I've put in my two cents worth. How about this Forrest A.,any comments on this subject?

All the best...EAH
 
Thanks EAH,
See, Deckel mills have removeable tables.
Cost is not an issue for me since I am not doing any production (hence not needing to change coolant often). For this, I use quite a high concentration (about 30% for a recommended 10% mix).
I clean the machines well after running the coolant, but since the tables are an "attachment", inevitably some coolant gets down in there and sits for months. This causes staining (I've heard it's bacteria causing this).

The other issue is that since I run any machine about 2 hours a month, the water based has usually evaporated when I go "let's throw that on the mill".

Ok, so I can fill it back up and try to remix the solution, but usually I just end up changing it at that point.

I have literally changed 20 gallons of fluid (4 times) for less than 20 minutes of actual cutting due to evaporation.

Of course, everyone is thinking about now..."why not just use a spray bottle???!!". Yeah, I know. There's something neat about hitting a button and hosing (must be a guy thing).

So, what I am looking for is something which will not evaporate, can sit in the mill for months, lubricates my dull hot cutters reasonably well, and doesn't stain. (and not bursting into flames would be nice since I have been known to melt an endmill from time to time).

Probably doesn't exist, but I thought I'd ask.

Thanks
Sean
 
Lemme flex my 40 years of machine shop experience at you.

I don't use flood coolant at all in my extensive home shop. It's simply too messy and too big a hassle. I do use soluable oil from a laundry squirt bottle and mineral lard oil and other specalty cutting aids dabbed on with a brush.

My chip pan stays dry and my machinery easy to clean with a little paint thinner on a rag.

I know newbies like to run flood coolant either because they feel it gives them better finishes or because maybe it gives them a feeling of running with the big dogs. Regardless, flood coolant for a small home shop frequently poses more problems than is solves. Local coolant application is far simpler and overall saves time.

UNLESS you do work requiring heavy stock removal in tough materials for hours at a time, flood coolant reduces overall productivity.

If you have to have a non-water based flood coolant I strongly reccommend you avoid automotive lube oils. They're simply not intended for metal cutting although some work quite well in this service.

I suggest a simple mineral lard oil instead. They look like salad oil, don't stain the paintwork, and clean up with a rag. They're also kind to human skin and eyes and machinery slides and creviced parts.

The same stuff is marketed under a variety of trade names. Earth shattering claims are made by the manufacturers for the superiority of their specific brand but it's mostly BS. One works about as good as another. Cutting oils have additives specifically designed to aid the cutting process.

I like Mobilmet products. They're available in convenient package sizes from most any catalog house or industrial supply serving machine shops.

Here's a link:

http://www.mobil.com/USA-English/Lubes/PDS/GLXXENINDMOMobilmetAlphaSeries.asp
 
Forrest,

Do your comments apply to cut-off bandsaws as well? A few years ago a friend gave me a 1970's era Delta that came with a coolant system. I dumped the old coolant (using ecologically sound methods of course) and have been cutting dry. Seems to work OK and I haven't used up all the blades he gave me yet.
 
Yep, I'm with Forrest. I use a squirt bottle, butter, lard--anything BUT flood. Sometimes I use a very small air jet. I've been thinking of rigging some kind of foot operated pump instead of the squirt bottle. I like to keep both hands ready! One for the stop switch, one to protect "vital" body parts.
 
Bill, band cut-off saws are an exception - there's always exceptions.

If your saw is equipped for flood coolant and you have to cut a thick piece of tough or hard material water based coolant is highly reccommended. temperatures get high in the cut zone and when dry cutting chips may weld together.

If your work consists of structural steel and small section solid stock, dry is probably the way to go. For many years I had a 4" x 7" Toledo band cut-off saw and I always cut dry with it.

I cut up to 6" dia round stock in my newer 7" x 12" cheapo TurnPro saw and consequently run soluable oil. Thus I resign myself to clean-outs every few months.
 
I woulddn't even DARE to post what Forrest Addy posted!

Yeah, I Hate flood coolant

A Lot!

I do basically what Forrest does.

For stainless steels, I use an oily tapping compound cut with straight mineral oil applied with a brush.

I have found this good enough for cutting 303 and 304 stainless on small lot production with high speed tools. Edge life is very good.

Milling cutters like lubricity, they cut better and last longer with oily coolant.

Sean:

Don't run rich soluble coolant on Lathes. The emulsifiers attack the Way Oil.

I have seen the Hardened and Ground Ways of everything from a nice Monarch EE to a Warner and Swasey No. 5 Turret Lathe worn completely out because the coolant stripped the ways clean and they ran metal to metal with the carriage.

Mills are somewhat "defended" against this except for the top way of the knee on the common knee and column mill.

Thanks again, Forrest

I was beginning to think I was missing something because I didn't flood the daylights out of my machines.
 
Thanks guys.
As you might have noticed from my first post, I was fully expecting the "don't use, use with a brush, use with a spray bottle" angles on this question.

I kind of enjoy Forrest's poke with the "newbies pretending to be big boys" comment too! Forrest knows me just about as well as he thinks he does...'cept...It gets even worse...

Asided from the sheer *FUN* of blasting stuff with coolant, I also use it to hose chips out of the T-slots and off the sides of the CNC enclosure for easy retrieval from the filter pan (I like spotless machines). And even worse than that is that I NEED this coolant simply because I cannot stand having a button on my control that does nothing! LOL!

Ok, Ok, truth is that I mostly machine dry, or with a brush. The next step is usually one of my cold air guns, and there are times when I actually have benefited from coolant (as rank as it is after having sat for months). It is however, mostly a fetish. I've gotten too excited at Westec watching the HS VMC's screaming submergered too many times
smile.gif


I'll give the mineral lard oil a shot and I'm happy that the link is to a Mobil product since I mostly use Mobil products anyway.

Nice Thread, Many Thanks!
Sean
 
How about this for preventing the coolant pan from becoming a mess : why not refilling your squirt bottles from the machine`s sump.
Keeps it kind of active if you don`t use it a lot.
PLUS you get to use that last button on your machine after all !
biggrin.gif


Lambert
 
I'm curious about this as well because I'd like to be sure the way oil on my lathe is effective.

For smell, I've heard to use a small air pump and one of those bubble stones you see in aquariums. The pump sits somewhere and pumps air into the tank, and the stone makes the bubbles tiny so they actually keep the fluid oxygenated and moving.

Tomorrow I'm going back to work already, I have my lathe opened up and I'm flushing out the coolant tank with a hose. It's difficult because the tank is the bottom of the machine and I really want all the chips out. I guess I'll wear some utility coveralls tomorrow.

So, a coolant refractometer is the best way to gauge coolant concentration/water?
 
Dammit Sean! You said noting about running coolant on a fully shrouded CNC machine. Ya set me up. Thought you were running a SB 9 or something.

Well ya got me. Sheesh!

Yeah, CNC machines having fully shrouded work envelopes are sure as hell exceptions to the home machine shop stricture on avoiding the use of flood coolant. Sean no doubt has a good set-up that keeps all the coolant and chips inside the machine - if he either keeps the door closed or stands in in opening to plug it with his wide absorbant body.

The usual home machine shop featuring a small lathe and a mill drill running coolant will soon be an oily/stick mess. You have to have a giant chip pan or a tightly fitting roll-back shroud to run coolant on small machine tools. It's very dificult to enclose a small manual machine tool so you still have access to the handwheels and other controls.

And Sean, careful there about flushing the machine with the coolant hose. High velocity coolant acts much like an air hose and blows chips everywhere. Some fully shrouded machines have no portection under the table permitting chips to find their way into ball screws and other secret, delicate places.

[This message has been edited by Forrest Addy (edited 07-05-2003).]
 
Didn't mean to mislead you Forrest. I have both an enclosed CNC and "wide chip-panned" manuals.
I would agree that coolant can make a big mess on unshrouded machines.... I was drenched head to toe when I got my first coolant pump on a BP (fun as hell though).

I will rephrase and say "blast in the CNC" and "dribble on the manuals" (those hoses are adjustable ya know?).

I would like to use the same coolant in both as the chip pans on the mills will catch all the *dribbled" coolant at low spindle speeds, and yes, normally I would use a brush for this with the proper lube, but sometimes I just like to push the button and cool it down a bit.

Same goes for the lathe although I rarely use coolant, but when I need to cool carbide, the waterbased has usually dried up by then and I get side tracked into a 20 minute refill scenereo (assuming I have any soluble around).

So, since none of my machines have any specific task, I am looking for a general purpose non-staining, non-evaporative coolant/lube that can live in a CNC, a Manual mill and a lathe.

The Mobil "sigma" on the page you linked looks like it might work... thoughts?

I promise not to douse the shop floor and the neighborhood unless I'm truely looking for excitement.

Sean
 
Oh, while I'm here, let me get some advice on "dribble" while I'm at it...

I have often used the practice of setting my coolant just enough to run (not spray) over the workpiece and into the cutter path.
I find that this keeps the cutter cool and lubed on medium speed cutting operations while also flushing the cut and allowing me to see any dykem (SP) lines if I'm using them.
Also, in my shop I sometimes want to make a part from unknown scrap (mostly AL) and It may be my imagination, but using this "dribble" seems to forgive me more of my choice of metals (as in, I can get away with mounting a crappy, gummy metal and still get a decent finish).
It ain't NASA, but often I'll get a decent part with a little flood when otherwise I'd have oatmeal. Other times, the metal is a good cutter, but the coolant doesn't seem to effect it either way, so it's good one way, and null the other... not a bad bet even if it is a bad habit based on inexperience or being to lazy to pass the scrap bin for the metal depot.

More thoughts?
Thanks!
Sean
 
Nope. I think yer on the right track. Sigma? Good as any. I like thinner cutting oild because they clean up a bit easier and are quicker to return to the sump and easier to filter. Otherwise mach nicht.
 
Sean,I know what you mean about Deckel removable tables,as I own an FP2 on which I keep the fixed table most of the time.This machine resided in the toolroom that I supervised before I joined the ranks of the SS Troops(Social Security that is).In all that time never was the sump filled with coolant.The work surfaces are all pristine.On the other hand,I have a 10x24 Cincinatti universal grinder that has always had water based coolant in the sump and this will develop a foul odor that comes out from under the workhead when it is moved and reveals a black stain under it. Totally synthetic water mix coolants can avoid much if not all of this problem,but some of them have environmental problems,as well as combining with the way oil to form a varnish that is difficult to remove.

One of the best suggestions was the fish tank aerator. Combine this with diligent skimming of tramp oil from the surface of the coolant and you may see an improvement.

Just some observations from 43 years of making chips. Cheers EAH

Forrest...I'd say I agree with you; only flood when absolutely neccesary!
 
I would like to find a very thin cutting oil that is compatible with copper alloys etc. I use some of the Vacmul Mobil product. The viscosity is listed on the Mobil site as 5.6 cts at 40 degrees C. Seems I have gotten some at one time with a viscosity of 3 cts. Does anyone have information on a straight mineral oil/lard oil with a water-like viscosity (around 3cts.) Seems most of the "light" oils have about double this viscosity. The Mobil Vacmul XLS looks like a good product but it is 5-6 at 40 deg. C and my processes don't get over 22 deg. C.
 
I like coolmister on a mill, it uses very little coolant and the air blast keeps the chips from being recut, thus dulling the cutter.

it uses water but not much, mayby 1/2 gallon a day.
 








 
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