Harold and Susan Vordos wrote:

"Mike Henry" wrote in message
...

"Harold and Susan Vordos" wrote in message
.net...

"Bob Engelhardt" wrote in message
...

Mike Henry wrote:

... A tubing-type skimmer ... animation here ...

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

Oh, that's clever! Give that man a patent. Bob

I tried to view that damned thing and there is no joy. Not sure if it's
my dialup or the computer itself---but I'm grateful for the link.
Thanks, Mike.

Care to comment on what you saw? At this point I'm totally in the dark.

Martin nailed it pretty well. The simulation showed the skimmer body
mounted on the outside of a lathe base/pedestal with an endless tube
protruding through a rectangular cutout in the base and dangling into the
sump. The tube rotates through the coolant and picks up tramp oil which
is then scraped off as it enters the skimmer body and is dropped into a
trough on the skimmer that channels it to a tramp oil collection
container, also outside the lathe sump. It seemed like it might be a good
candidate for sumps that don't have an easy way to mount a belt of disc
skimmer which generally have to be mounted directly over the sump and I
gather that's not an option for your Graziano.

Zebra also makes a similar oil skimmer and it's pictured he

http://www.beacontechnology.com/mate...machineskates/

with a basic description of how it works and you can see videos of them
here in 1.7, 3.4 and 60.1 MB versions. The 2 smaller files are MOV format
(Quicktime?) and the large one is AVI. The AVI looks like it will take
~20 minutes to download on my cable connection, so you probably don't want
to try that on dialup. BTW, you might find it quicker to right cick on
the video link and save it to your hard disk and play it from there rather
than to left click and play it from the link.

Mike



Thanks for the tip, Mike. I am likely one of the worst on this group where
computer skills are concerned, and had no idea about right clicking. I'll
investigate these items in good time.

You nailed the situation with my Graziano. It would be dead easy to apply
the skimmer you described, while anything more complex would border on
impossible. Lathes equipped with coolant are particularly bad for tramp
oils, considering the chip pan catches everything and shuttles it to the
sump.

I should have done something about tramp oils long ago, but there was
precious little on the market when I was actively machining. A lot has
happened in that department since '83! :-)

Thanks, all, for the great tips and descriptions.

Harold


Harold,

Oil skimmers have been around at least as long as that.

I can recall seeing disk type skimmers being used to pick diesel fuel
off the tops of sumps, from when I was still in school. I graduated High
school around the same time you retired. :-)

There are a pile of variations on the skimmer theme.

That endless tube one is a pretty nice variation. If one were willing
to add a small pump to the workings, one could use juts about any
version, in any location, as the only access needed would be the power
lead and the output pipe.

Hmmm....


:-)

Cheers
Trevor Jones