Coolant? when to use

stern

stern

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Have a newby question as im still learning, especially with my home made mill. I use coolant sometimes on the lathe depending on what im doing, usually for steel when taking heavy cuts or using hardened steel. Now when it comes to the mill i am clueless lol. I don't know if dry cutting is something I shouldn't do or if there is any rule regarding using coolant. My mill use will basically only be for steel as that's all I really work with, so I don't know if I should just use coolant all the time or if there are times its not necessary. I am also thinking about adding a coolant system to the mill based on what great advise I get here.
 
Hi...

In my case, on both the lathe and mill, I don't push the machines hard enough to generate significant amounts of heat. I didn't like flood coolant because it's messy and obscures my vision of the part. Until recently, I used either cutting oil or WD-40 as a lubricant to improve finish quality. Things have been this way for several years and the results are great but, the smoke gets annoying and it's probably unhealty. A couple weeks ago, I decided to try a Kool Mist unit. So far, I've only used it on the lathe... WOW! It really works. It provides just enough of a lubricant to produce a great finish and the part is kept totally cool/cold (even with regular heavy cuts) because of the evaporation process. I have not tried it on aluminum yet but suspect it will be fine.

The mister provides a safe level of air pressure to clear swarf yet, not cause a concern for personal safety or damage to machines. It hasn't caused any rust, the ingredients are "eco-friendly" and as far as I can tell, contain glycerine and the same anti-bacteriostat used in household humidifiers. I no longer get burning eyes and inflammed sinues from all the oil smoke.

Because of the temperature differences, I'm in the process of updating my offset tables/notes and this will take a while. That's the only downside to switching over.

Anyhow, prior to this, I always used oil on every mill operation. On the lathe, I would sometimes do stock removal dry and use oil on the last couple passes.

BTW: There's a thread here called "Flood or Mister" (or something like that)... check it out for some ideas/thoughts.


Ray
 
Slightly off the topic,but if your cooling fluid is obscuring your work, try using Castrol Syntalo its water soluble and is clear in colour.
 
Ray C,
Check out the Material Safety Data Sheets for KoolMist (http://www.koolmist.com/tech-center/pdf-downloads).

I'm not a toxicologist. However, should a user have an underlying lung condition, I wonder if this could temporarily make things worse. Also, does this stuff mold (water based) if not used quick enough. Fungal pneumonia's are nasty. Consider calling KoolMist ans asking. Once again the stuff looks fairly benign, especially in contrast to vaporized WD40.

Daryl
MN



Ray C said:
Hi...

In my case, on both the lathe and mill, I don't push the machines hard enough to generate significant amounts of heat. I didn't like flood coolant because it's messy and obscures my vision of the part. Until recently, I used either cutting oil or WD-40 as a lubricant to improve finish quality. Things have been this way for several years and the results are great but, the smoke gets annoying and it's probably unhealty. A couple weeks ago, I decided to try a Kool Mist unit. So far, I've only used it on the lathe... WOW! It really works. It provides just enough of a lubricant to produce a great finish and the part is kept totally cool/cold (even with regular heavy cuts) because of the evaporation process. I have not tried it on aluminum yet but suspect it will be fine.

The mister provides a safe level of air pressure to clear swarf yet, not cause a concern for personal safety or damage to machines. It hasn't caused any rust, the ingredients are "eco-friendly" and as far as I can tell, contain glycerine and the same anti-bacteriostat used in household humidifiers. I no longer get burning eyes and inflammed sinues from all the oil smoke.

Because of the temperature differences, I'm in the process of updating my offset tables/notes and this will take a while. That's the only downside to switching over.

Anyhow, prior to this, I always used oil on every mill operation. On the lathe, I would sometimes do stock removal dry and use oil on the last couple passes.

BTW: There's a thread here called "Flood or Mister" (or something like that)... check it out for some ideas/thoughts.


Ray
Click to expand...
 
Hi Daryl...

I did a bit of reading about this before jumping in and I take this kind of stuff seriously. Here's what I gather after doing a good bit of reading. People with breathing conditions (mainly asthma) are advised to stay away from it primarily because the increased moisture in the air can give them a heavy feeling in their chest and trigger an attack. Just like when walking into a sauna or down the street on a humid day.

The MSDS... Here's what I gained from it:

Carboxylic acid salt -This is glorified Acetic Acid (basically, synthetic lemon juice).
Triethanolamine -This is an emulsifier used in the food industry.
Polyalkylene glycol monobutyl ether -This is a synthetic lubricant. Nasty in concentrated forms but this product contains < 0.1 %. (trace amounts).



I personally feel this is well within reasonable risk and feel it's far better than breathing smoke from WD-40 and high sulfur oil.

Your point is well taken and appreciated. We should all watch each other's backs...

Ray


PS: Haven't forgotten about the lesson in static forces. I had some family issues and now, the shop work is kicking into high gear because everyone's getting ready to launch their boats.


Uglydog said:
Ray C,
Check out the Material Safety Data Sheets for KoolMist (http://www.koolmist.com/tech-center/pdf-downloads).

I'm not a toxicologist. However, should a user have an underlying lung condition, I wonder if this could temporarily make things worse. Also, does this stuff mold (water based) if not used quick enough. Fungal pneumonia's are nasty. Consider calling KoolMist ans asking. Once again the stuff looks fairly benign, especially in contrast to vaporized WD40.

Daryl
MN
Click to expand...
 
As far as breathing the stuff in, I had a Noga mister that came with my mill. I used that for a while and ran CoolMist 77. The problem with those is that they use a venturi to suck the coolent up. The high air speed required causes the coolant to be atomized, creating a fog that gets on everything (and is not very directional). It worked Ok, but the day after I used it, I found myself with a sore throat. They also need higher pressures to run, and are pretty loud.

After getting sick of that (literally), I decided to build a fogbuster clone after reading comments from people who recommended them. The build took about a day, and parts were about $80, but I didn't really shop around. It uses a pressurized coolant tank to force the coolant up to the nozzle, and a low pressure air supply (10-20psi). You get small droplets of coolant, too big to hang in the air, and very easy to direct. I have had no problems with sore throats since I started using it. You can buy the commercial Fogbuster for a couple hundred if you don't want to build your own.
 
Hi DMS / All,

Yes, I read people's comments about this and was concerned at first but, found a way around it using the Kool Mist. I hung the solution container (a small soda bottle) from the shelf behind my lathe at a level slightly higher than the nozzle. With that setup, it supplies droplets with the pressure set down next to nothing. In reality though, I've had no sinus irritation problems at all and find myself adjusting it to give a mix of droplets and vapor. It takes only a few moments of tweaking the dials to get it where you want and I was planning to install a push-button valve on the airline feed to simplify things.

It's good to hear any/all feedback especially when (as was correctly pointed out) we're ultimately inhaling vinegar, a food emulsifier (the stuff they add to chocolate to make it thick) and trace amounts of a synthetic oil. In my case, my sinuses are so ruined from breathing oil smoke, I cannot even smell this stuff. I asked my wife (who has no sinus problems like me) to give it a good whiff and she couldn't recognize any particular odor at all. And best of all, she's not complaining about the oil smoke migrating into the rest of the house.


Ray

Mister Bottle.jpg


DMS said:
As far as breathing the stuff in, I had a Noga mister that came with my mill. I used that for a while and ran CoolMist 77. The problem with those is that they use a venturi to suck the coolent up. The high air speed required causes the coolant to be atomized, creating a fog that gets on everything (and is not very directional). It worked Ok, but the day after I used it, I found myself with a sore throat. They also need higher pressures to run, and are pretty loud.

After getting sick of that (literally), I decided to build a fogbuster clone after reading comments from people who recommended them. The build took about a day, and parts were about $80, but I didn't really shop around. It uses a pressurized coolant tank to force the coolant up to the nozzle, and a low pressure air supply (10-20psi). You get small droplets of coolant, too big to hang in the air, and very easy to direct. I have had no problems with sore throats since I started using it. You can buy the commercial Fogbuster for a couple hundred if you don't want to build your own.
Click to expand...

Mister Bottle.jpg
 
Ray I see you have a pretty simple setup. Where do you add the air. I don't see it in the photo. I was thinking of getting a small parts washer tank and using it as a flood cooler and just place it under the end of the mill table to collect the runoff. After seeing your setup I think I will try a mist cooler but there is no place to go here to see how they are put together. Could you put some more photos on to show this simple setup. Thanks Stan
 
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