"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
. net...
"Mike Henry" wrote in message
...
snip---

I've been running Hangsterfer S-500 in a CNC mill without any bacterial
growth or odor problems. It's been nearly a year on the current charge
(5% in water) with periodic top offs - mostly water with a little fresh
coolant once in a while but the mill only gets used a few times a month.
AIR, it was around $100 for a 5-gal pail.

From what I've seen none of the coolants that get the best/most
recommendations are sold through the big tool distributors - you have to
find a local distributor through the manufacturer's web site.

Mike

Thanks for your comments, Mike. Can you tell me how you're dealing with
tramp oils? My biggest concern is my Graziano, and possibly my Overbeck
grinder, which I have never used at this point. I fear the grinder will
contribute as badly as the Graziano, by design. I know, from years of
using the Graziano, that the oil is troublesome, but they made no
provisions for skimming. It can be done, but will require modification to
the lathe base casting. Having coolant available is worth the effort,
so it's something I will likely address in the future, when I get the shop
fully operational.

Years back I was very familiar with HoCut 237, which was used primarily in
grinding equipment where I once worked. It was quite good, although it,
too, slowly got funky. I believe Houghton has a new formulation that is
reputed to resist getting smelly-----which I'll explore as well.

Up until recently tramp oils were dealt with by removing the lid on the
6-gal coolant tank and sopping up the tramp oil with some paper towels.
That's messy, really awkward, and not all that effective so I've just
purchased an Abanaki Lil' Blue belt skimmer. It's in a temporary mount at
the moment and the coolant pump can't be used to mix the coolant, but it's
cleaned up the coolant on one side of the tank baffle nicely.

I can't find a page for the skimmer on the Abanaki web site now, but it
looks similar to their Mighty Mini he

http://www.abanaki.com/mightymi.html

I'm not familiar with your Graziano lathe and it's coolant system but there
are all sorts of skimming options out there. A tubing-type skimmer might be
a better option if you have limited space. There's an animation here of one
such system on a lathe with a coolant sump in the base:

http://www.abanaki.com/coolant_products.html#TubeTastic

Mike