lathe coolant systems

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KenHo
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lathe coolant systems

Post by KenHo »

Hello all - my Form 1 is approved and in hand. I've machined 1 60º cone from 17-4 SS and had a bugger of a time getting the inside of cone. Heat was a big factor using a multi-flute 60º chamfer cutter, or with boring bar on compound. The outside cut fairly good with carbide inserts. All this is dry cut other than perhaps WD-40 sprayed on tool which helped some, but not enough. I'm looking to add either a flood or mist type cooling system, and thinking perhaps a mist type. Will the mist type work ok? OR - is a flood type needed?

What is a good coolant? How about Mobilcut 100? This is a whole new area of machining for me. I've been using my lathe and mill dry so there would be less mess to clean up.

I'd be happy for any suggestions for a coolant system with a $200 budget in mind (less if possible:)

I have an air compressor for the mist system.

Thanks again for all for any and all suggestions.

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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by T-Rex »

A couple more threads we've chatted about this, but here is a good one.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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I bumped the resource page a simple coolent system is posted by CMV lots of other information too.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by fishman »

When boring the inside of my 17-4 and titanium cones and Ks, I just spray extra foamy tap magic cutting fluid in the cone before each pass.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by KenHo »

Thanks for the info folks. I knew I'd read somewhere threads containing coolant info but couldn't find them this morning. Those should give me the info needed. Thanks

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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by JulietDeltaCustoms »

KenHo wrote:Thanks for the info folks. I knew I'd read somewhere threads containing coolant info but couldn't find them this morning. Those should give me the info needed. Thanks

Ken H>

We just hooked up a flood system on our lathe. I have no idea how we made it this far without it. A food grade bucket, 6 gallon if i recall correctly, a hydroponic pump from local grow shop rated for over 200 gallons per hour, some ace hardware clear tubing, and be sure to filter or strain it before it mixes back into the bucket! Whole setup was like $50- $60 with coolant.

Mcmaster carr has great coolant for cutting all types of metals. It was $22ish. Smells like lemonade and is water soluble.

I guess it's worth mentioning that we already had a magnetic base with 2 blue & orange nozzles from grizzly. I believe thats another $30 or $40.

Trying to part through 1.5" 316 was impossible without it. You'll love it!
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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I have used Kool Mist in the past. 1 gallon goes a long way.
IIRC it is a wax based lubricant and the water acts as the coolant piece of the equation. The wax melts at the point of contact between the tool and the piece.

I have an old fuel pump that feeds to a magnetic base with flexible nozzles. It can be very messy so it is good to have some shrouds around the piece that you are turning. But it does seem to help with the finish.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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I don't think a coolant system is going to be any help to you for cutting 17-4.

With a big HSS multiflute countersink tool, you'd be better off with tapping oil and a very slow spindle speed. The way you're using that tool it has more in common with a barrel chamber reamer than anything else, so that's about how you should treat it: around 20-30 surface feet per minute (75-115 RPM for a 1" tool), lots of heavy tapping oil like Moly-Dee, don't feed too slowly, retract often to clear chips.

What kind of boring bar are you using? I guess I've never tried boring 17-4 or 4140 (they machine very similarly) with HSS, so maybe coolant could help you there, but with carbide (solid or indexable, especially coated), dry is fine. If you're creating enough heat to cause problems with carbide and 17-4, a coolant system supplying anything less than 100 PSI or so will likely do more harm than good. Carbide can handle lots of heat, but it doesn't do well with rapid heat/cool cycles, which is what "a little" coolant will do to the cutting edge. You want either enough coolant to actually keep the cutting edge cool (which is A LOT) or none at all. You could try rigging up an air blast to clear chips out, that can be helpful.

Our CNC lathe actually has a proper high-pressure coolant system. We don't use it. With the right tooling, every operation in alloy steel works at least nearly as well dry as it does with coolant, except for drilling. Drilling does usually benefit from coolant, but you can certainly make it work with oil or even air. We use coated carbide drills completely dry, and it works very well, just a couple seconds slower than it could be with coolant.

Note that all of this goes out the window with different materials. Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40). 300-series SS can be OD turned dry but for everything else you want coolant, Ti is similar.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by fishman »

BinaryAndy wrote:Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40)
Why do you say that? I know I'm not the only one that cuts aluminum dry
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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fishman wrote:
BinaryAndy wrote:Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40)
Why do you say that? I know I'm not the only one that cuts aluminum dry
Have you tried cutting aluminum with WD-40? If not, you'll be impressed at the improvement. Little/no chip welding, higher speeds, and much better surface finish. Sometimes I'll use Kool Mist if I feel like it, but usually just WD40 as the results are just as good IMO.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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BinaryAndy wrote:I don't think a coolant system is going to be any help to you for cutting 17-4.

With a big HSS multiflute countersink tool, you'd be better off with tapping oil and a very slow spindle speed. The way you're using that tool it has more in common with a barrel chamber reamer than anything else, so that's about how you should treat it: around 20-30 surface feet per minute (75-115 RPM for a 1" tool), lots of heavy tapping oil like Moly-Dee, don't feed too slowly, retract often to clear chips.

What kind of boring bar are you using? I guess I've never tried boring 17-4 or 4140 (they machine very similarly) with HSS, so maybe coolant could help you there, but with carbide (solid or indexable, especially coated), dry is fine. If you're creating enough heat to cause problems with carbide and 17-4, a coolant system supplying anything less than 100 PSI or so will likely do more harm than good. Carbide can handle lots of heat, but it doesn't do well with rapid heat/cool cycles, which is what "a little" coolant will do to the cutting edge. You want either enough coolant to actually keep the cutting edge cool (which is A LOT) or none at all. You could try rigging up an air blast to clear chips out, that can be helpful.

Our CNC lathe actually has a proper high-pressure coolant system. We don't use it. With the right tooling, every operation in alloy steel works at least nearly as well dry as it does with coolant, except for drilling. Drilling does usually benefit from coolant, but you can certainly make it work with oil or even air. We use coated carbide drills completely dry, and it works very well, just a couple seconds slower than it could be with coolant.

Note that all of this goes out the window with different materials. Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40). 300-series SS can be OD turned dry but for everything else you want coolant, Ti is similar.
I agree with this. If you're having trouble with 17-4, your problem is most likely the tooling, not the lack of coolant. I really like working with this material, and with a carbide insert boring bar, it's really easy to bore. Not brazed carbide, but an insert tool.

Are you running the lathe too slow for boring to get a good finish? Or are you just trying to do it with HSS and having trouble? Carbide insert tooling is the answer with this stuff, skip the coolant IMO, on the lathe at least. You should be able to get surface finishes that refract light like a music CD, with the right tools.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by JulietDeltaCustoms »

I think any heavy work on 17-4 could certainly benefit from coolant. Can it be done dry? Certainly. But i remember running production on these same type of 17-4 cups, on a manual machine with mediocre carbide inserted tooling, and it tends to heat ths material up. Maybe it's due to vibration, or less power (nore cutting force) or slow feeds and high speeds. Who knows? But coolant makes not absolutely nailing every factor more forgiving. My 17-4 parts dont end up half straw color when im done machining them and the chips arent pink anymore. Seems like an improvement.

Speaking of tooling for cutting that inside taper, what else is there? Seems like inserted boring bars arent ridgid enough in the small diameters (5/16 & 3/8) to stick out far enough to reach into that face without vibration.

I've been looking for 1/4 and 3/16 m42 hsco boring bars, but cant find any. Any suggestions?
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Fulmen »

While not absolutely required for some (even many) operations, cooling is beneficial. Especially when running heavy cuts. Ever tried hogging aluminum dry? It quickly turns into a mess of stringy chips and chip welding. Steel usually breaks fine dry, but the parts can heat up enough to mess up a precise measurement. And it still wears your tooling more than necessary.

For parting proper cooling isn't just beneficial, it's pretty much required. So that alone is enough to warrant a cooling system.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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fishman wrote:
BinaryAndy wrote:Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40)
Why do you say that? I know I'm not the only one that cuts aluminum dry
Yeah, I guess I shouldn't have used such absolute terms; aluminum can be cut dry, but coolant makes everything work so much better that in my opinion it really ought to be considered mandatory. Without coolant it's gummy and sticky, it welds itself to tools and clogs flutes, it smears. With coolant tools last pretty much indefinitely, you can machine it at ludicrous speeds, and getting a great surface finish is easy.

Fulmen: A lot of the most productive turning and milling tools for steel are actually supposed to be used dry, and the modern PVD and CVD coatings like AlTiN and Al2O3 work better and faster, and last longer, dry. I routinely use a carbide insert parting tool dry in alloy steel; the inserts last a really long time, and the feed rate would have anyone accustomed to HSS parting tools lunging for the emergency stop. HSS parting tools do need lubrication, that's true, but you'll often be better off using a heavy tapping oil for that rather than coolant.

JulietDeltaCustoms: For boring internal tapers I use AlTiN coated solid carbide boring bars from MariTool. There are also insert boring bars with solid carbide shanks that work well ($$$ though...). Going to a carbide shank and a very small corner radius makes a big difference. I have thought about making an indexable boring tool with something like a 50 degree conical shank, tapering from .250 up to an inch or so at the holder. That way you'd have about as much rigidity as you can fit into a cone while still having some clearance. I doubt I'm going to get around to that anytime soon though.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by CMV »

I have had limited success doing the inside of a cone with an indexable insert type boring bar. Problem is to have one small enough to reach all the way in & have clearance, the bar itself isn't rigid enough. What I do is take a small brazed carbide bit & grind clearance. Works great & is very cheap. You need a gray wheel & green wheel on your bench grinder. Even for a .22 cal size bore inside cone, it isn't a whole lot of time grinding a 1/4" AXA size bit. If you only grind minimum amount of clearance necessary to reach all the way in, you still have a fairly strong tool and enough face to resharpen several times. 3/8" or 1/4" bits are the way to go IMHO.

I never use coolant for AL. Occasionally I'll use a little WD40 on a finish pass if I'm not happy with the surface finish, but in general I get a bright shiny finish just using the right insert & feed rate. I only use coolant when I have to - otherwise I like to avoid the added mess & additional cleanup time. Only issue I've ever had was using a 4-flute roughing endmill for steel. It gummed up & clogged really bad. When I switched to a higher helix for AL the problem was solved. Picking/grinding the right tool for the material goes a long way toward having a good end result.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

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JulietDeltaCustoms wrote: My 17-4 parts dont end up half straw color when im done machining them and the chips arent pink anymore. Seems like an improvement.
Neither do mine, even for very thin cones at .030" thick, and I'm only turning 17-4 dry. Just have to match the speeds correctly, and remember there's a big difference between using what works well in a home shop vs production speeds. If you're trying to run production speeds, cooling is probably a good idea, but it's not really necessary otherwise. No harm in using it if you want to, but at the speeds and feeds I'm using it doesn't make much difference.

I'm using 5/16" and 3/8" SCLR boring bars with CCMT (IIRC) 21.51 inserts; they work fine for inside cones down to about 30 cal, smaller bores will be easier with a brazed carbide tool.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by fishman »

yondering wrote:
JulietDeltaCustoms wrote: My 17-4 parts dont end up half straw color when im done machining them and the chips arent pink anymore. Seems like an improvement.
remember there's a big difference between using what works well in a home shop vs production speeds. If you're trying to run production speeds, cooling is probably a good idea, but it's not really necessary otherwise. No harm in using it if you want to, but at the speeds and feeds I'm using it doesn't make much difference.
Exactly. The stuff cuts fine dry with hss if you aren't in a rush. When doing my titanium ks and 17-4 cone, I never went over 400rpm and .010" cut.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Fulmen »

BinaryAndy: There is a huge difference between CNC with high quality tooling and the tooling and manual machines that most people here have access to. I use flood cooling quite often, if not for the finish then to avoid getting burned by hot chips. And while I don't have to justify the time spent I don't like spending an hour on something I can get done in 30 minutes.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by KenHo »

Thanks to all for the discussion on lathe coolant.... and lack of need for coolant :)

An update - Yes I was using too much RPM was the the reason for overheating 17-4, especially with the chamber tool for inside the cone. By lowering the rpm, and using cutting oil I found that to work pretty good.

For turning the outside of cone I used insert carbide tools mostly, with some HSS. Either seems to work pretty good as long as the HSS steel is sharp. Here the mister coolant system worked pretty good. While I could turn 17-4 with carbide insert pretty good dry, it just seems to be better with the mister coolant. I used MobilCut 102 diluted with water (that's what a buddy who loaned me the mister setup used). It didn't take much coolant at all, with mostly air flow to make a difference in cutting.

Thanks again,

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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Historian »

fishman wrote:
BinaryAndy wrote:Aluminum NEEDS coolant (or a lot of WD40)
Why do you say that? I know I'm not the only one that cuts aluminum dry
Though using a primitive small American Iron Atlas 618 my experience machining
various topologies with Aluminum I have not had to use any coolant except
when parting, dabbing some WD40 when half way through.

My parameters include using high speed with modest depth.

For a tool I have converged on an extremely hand sharpened HSS,
spending all necessary time to sharpen the tool to the point that
under a glass you can see a razor edge ... one of the dicta from the
master tool and die machinists in the 1950's.

Included in that advice was to stone a micro round at the tip:
"Unless you want your piece's surface to look like you
have sloppily machined a 128 tpi thread surface."

I finish with a couple of passes with a fine diamond flat and then
a few passes on a hard Arkansas.

The finish is shiny.

The process is the juice.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by T-Rex »

If someone takes anything from this thread, it should be how each combination of machine/material/tooling can vary greatly and it pays to know all 3. A competent operator should be able to run most machines (complexity aside), but the one whos spent the time experimenting will undoubtedly prevail.

Also, some here are spoiled with new fangled tools while others have to play at the kid's table :D. It's nice to see how proficient each of you is with your equipment.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Fulmen »

Historian: While slow speeds and small cuts reduce the need for cooling HSS does last longer when cooled. For carbide it's not as straightforward, many coatings are designed to work at high temperatures.
I seldom use HSS for anything except drilling and boring very small holes, but I prefer to use cooling when possible. The tools last longer and usually produce better finish. With carbide I use coolant for heavy cuts and when running dry doesn't provide the desired finish or chip formation.
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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Historian »

Fulmen, for Aluminum I use high speed.
I agree with your information, using various
tools such as carbide, Ti coated inserts, etc.

The distinct advantage of home model engineering
is that one is free from production requirements
so often resharping tools is part of the fun.

Much like processing B&W 4x5 negatives, inserting them
into the carrier of a 4x5 enlarger, focusing, printing by hand,
selenium toning, etc., is a Zen experience. Shamefully I have been
dragged clawing into using a 15mega pixel camera and printing
with a dye transfer printer. But not as satisfying as shooting with
a plastic-elastic firearm with the loss of tactile feel of the wood
of a .303 Enfield, M1A1, etc.

For SS I use special inserts, especially for internal threading.
I turn the spindle with a hand crank in the most
primitive fashion, but control*.


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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Capt. Link. »

I've used many different coolants over the years and still use cutting oil and brush for 99% of jobs.I still have a case of the old school now banned stuff for aluminum.It works better than most save a few.While WD-40 is not bad next time try triflow,slick-50 or other Teflon based wonder lube.The finish is better than what they banned years ago and may not kill you.I know you can machine aluminum dry I find the chip welding to be a real problem and it can damage your tools.

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Re: lathe coolant systems

Post by Ghost-Delta »

I agree with the a lot or non at all for carbide. I've personally noticed an incredible difference when boring on 17-4 with coolant. I agree it is not necessary, but boy does it make a difference especially when parting. It also eliminates any chip weld you would get. When using my 6 flute 60 degree countersink without coolant it would generate so much heat, that it would work harden the steel, and create a huge headache when performing any other operations.Ever since I installed a flood coolant system on my lathe, reaming the cups I make for my customers is way way easier and a whole lot faster. Which becomes increasingly important when making 30+ cups at a time. You don't need coolant for boring on 17-4 but if you do use coolant I don't think you would ever consider going back to working dry. If the only problem you have working with 17-4 is boring then I believe a flood coolant system would help(although if its just boring we are talking about you don't absolutely need it). If you do a lot of parting, boring, and reaming with countersinks and are having issues with it, I think flood coolant is the way to go. This is just what I have seen from my personal experience, and I have made hundreds of solvent traps and cups.

You do not need an expensive set up either. My coolant setup only costs me $25 for the pump, $5 for the bucket, 30$ for a magnetic base with flood coolant hoses, and around $15 dollars for the hoses and hose clamps to run the coolant through to the magnetic base.

Then i simply drilled some holes in the chip bed to drain back into the bucket. The only thing is you need to make sure that you filter the coolant before it returns to the bucket, as the metal chips/dust could damage your pump. Your local grow nursery(I went to brew and grow)should have a pump for a good price, if you have one around you the prices are great.

Good Luck!
I hope to hear that everything went well.

Regards,
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