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Asking advice: WD40 for coolant on CNC mill?

Paul-Paul-Paul... that was an award winning post you shared there. The engineer in you really stood out.

I share with you a photo of pretty much everything you'll need to have successfully coolantized machining on your new Tormach. Don't worry about rust with this stuff. Nearly impossible, and it won't kill you either. Vises mounted for weeks if not months will come off with everything underneath still good as gold. Or steel rather.

View attachment 381145

Small Shop Shopping List: You'll need some version of everything you see here. Leaving out any one item quickly downgrades your chances for coolant success.

1) QualChem 251C Coolant
2) RO/DI Unit (Pump optional)
3) Refractometer
4) Fluid Measuring Vessel/Spatula
5) Powered Mixer
6) 5-10 Gallon Mobile Bucket
7) Aerator
8) Shop vac nozzle cut like a chess castle for sucking up tramp oil off the top of the coolant. (Works better then a few "systems" I've tried.)
9) Worn out shop broom. This can't be bought. Produced from years of sweeping up chips.

Keep your concentration where it belongs and no problems will haunt you. Don't make the mistake of making your initial batch with RO/DI. Use tap water to start. Good luck.
Pretty much the same bunch of stuff I use to manage the coolant in my home machine. I’d add a box of heavy weight nitrile gloves. I use those when removing fines from the bottom of the tank. I keep telling myself I should drain and clean everything since it’s been about 10 years since last done. But since it still smells fine, doesn’t rust things, and still works well I find it easy to ignore.
 
I've seen water solvable leave rust, the blazer crap we use at work separates and fucks the concentration.

Well I won't likely be puting another drop of full synthetic in any of my machines in this lifetime.
Looks good in theory, but that Schidt doesn't protect like oil!


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
When I quit my job as a machinist the last thing I did was purchase a bunch of heavy stuff using the shop account at MSC. One of the perks of that job was getting some older manual equipment that was displaced by a new cnc cell.

To get my home shop setup while I had the card with a discount and didn’t have to pay shipping, I got a couple of Kurt vises and among other things picked up 15gal of coolant concentration. I still have a full pail left and that was 15yrs ago. It lasts a long time if you keep the concentration correct. I’ve pumped it from one lathe into a barrel and used it again in a new machine. Several times. My stuff never rusts and aquarium bubbler + being diligent about removing tramp oil keeps the shop from smelling.
 
Pretty much the same bunch of stuff I use to manage the coolant in my home machine. I’d add a box of heavy weight nitrile gloves. I use those when removing fines from the bottom of the tank. I keep telling myself I should drain and clean everything since it’s been about 10 years since last done. But since it still smells fine, doesn’t rust things, and still works well I find it easy to ignore.
Yes, forgot the nitrile gloves. Mine were sitting about 5 feet from where that picture was taken. I also just remembered Minnow Nets. Great for scooping out the small stuff. I don't do it often either, but am usually amazed at how much is there when I do. In all my years I've never once had smelly rotting coolant. As long as you keep the spit and food and blood and cigarette butts out of it, it will keep rather well. :-)
 
LOL!

You fella's and'jer gloves...


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox
Awe right smarty pants... I put on a glove for my chip scooping hand, which by the time I'm done is either shredded or removed or both. Otherwise these hands never see a glove unless I'm shoveling snow. So shoot me already. : - )
 
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I'm going to give Paul the benefit of the doubt and assume he's a software engineer. Or even electrical, anything but an M.E.
 
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I wouldn't go that far.
There are a TON of people that have no idea what it takes to machine parts correctly. They learn from a book, from YouTube, advice from a friend, etc... when in reality what they should do is get a job in an actual machine shop for a couple of years before jumping head first into it with zero experience.

We can make this profession look really easy, but it took a LOT of time and experience for us to get to where we are. That's what most newbies don't grasp.

Don't you just put the part in and push the green button?
 
Hello everyone. New to this forum, new to CNC. I recently sold off my Bridgeport series 1 Jhead, bought a Tormach 1100 CNC. Then I was horrified of the machine so I took a solidworks course, and Ansys course and a CNC course. I'm getting through it. Still freaked out by something called a mill that doesn't have cranks and dials.....

OK then, so the machine has a large sump, a pump, Gcode easily turns on coolant, I built a reasonable enclosure out of acrylic. But I have some concerns. I hear that water based coolant tends to rust things. Water, ions, corrosion, anodes, cathodes....yup, that's consistent. I'd rather not hear of some magic snake oil in water that doesn't have these problems. they all do. Further, I don't like the notion that these things can develop bacterial problems. So do I drill a hole in the tank, install a water heater element bung, screw in an element and kill off the microscopic beasties once a week? whew, who wants that? Water based coolant is off the table in my humble shop for these reasons, snake oil or not.

But then I was thinking of simply using WD40. I've used it for eons, welded over the stuff, got it way too hot, made careful note of the left over slime once the kerosene vapes off. How bad do you reckon the fire hazard is? I don't like having lots of kerosene surface area exposed in the tank....so maybe add a plenum and a baffle, or a P-trap.......

Please, asking your thoughts. Sure, the specific heat of WD40 isn't anywhere near water, it won't get rid of the heat as efficiently....but it's better than air no? It won't rust stuff, no electrolyte action with disimilar metals (cast from the Kurt vise vs the cast from the table), no galvanic potential. Just a simple, cheap dielectric lubricant that always seemed pretty hard to burn.

PS, I have no interest in working at ludicrous speeds. Easy enough to slow down and wait a while. She's still faster than old 9" x 42" "Hank", although I do miss the knee.

Thanks for the read, may the mill rise up to meet you! (I put mine on risers, tired of bending over machines designed for short people).
My advice is use water soluble coolants ONLY. I used to work for Doosan and we had a customer burn his shop to the ground using some odd concoction in his VMC. We had another customer do the same using straight oil in his machine. Water soluble is the way to go.
 
Paul-Paul-Paul... that was an award winning post you shared there. The engineer in you really stood out.

I share with you a photo of pretty much everything you'll need to have successfully coolantized machining on your new Tormach. Don't worry about rust with this stuff. Nearly impossible, and it won't kill you either. Vises mounted for weeks if not months will come off with everything underneath still good as gold. Or steel rather.

View attachment 381145

Small Shop Shopping List: You'll need some version of everything you see here. Leaving out any one item quickly downgrades your chances for coolant success.

1) QualChem 251C Coolant
2) RO/DI Unit (Pump optional)
3) Refractometer
4) Fluid Measuring Vessel/Spatula
5) Powered Mixer
6) 5-10 Gallon Mobile Bucket
7) Aerator
8) Shop vac nozzle cut like a chess castle for sucking up tramp oil off the top of the coolant. (Works better then a few "systems" I've tried.)
9) Worn out shop broom. This can't be bought. Produced from years of sweeping up chips.

Keep your concentration where it belongs and no problems will haunt you. Don't make the mistake of making your initial batch with RO/DI. Use tap water to start. Good luck.
The RO/DI unit is probably optional with 251C. Good stuff, but it's not too picky on the water compared to other coolants.
 
Why? That seems counterintuitive.
I haven't read or used all the different brands, but they few I have each suggest using tap water for initial fill. (Oil Emulsion types) There was a thread on here not long ago about a guy having foaming problems up the ying-yang. Turns out the problem was he used RO/DI for intial fill.
 
Why? That seems counterintuitive.
I can't speak about coolant mixtures, and I imagine it is highly dependent on your local water quality, but here in NYC ive found the chlorine in our soft and quite good tap water seems to make for better long term storage in things like compression sprayers and TIG coolers.
 
I use Hangsterfer's 5080, mixed with distilled water. The tap water here is super hard; just one gallon leaves a thick layer of stinky, crunchy sludge in the distiller. I initially had rust problems and even mineral buildup in the machine when I was using straight tap water, but switching to distilled solved everything.
 








 
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