"Ignoramus20251" wrote in message
...
I personally disagree with bashing of flood coolant as used on
lathes. (and, granted, I do not have much experience).

First, with reasonable speeds, flood coolant is not being sprayed
around by rotating parts that are being turned. Not enough centripetal
force, at speeds that seem reasonable to me. The only way it would get
sprayed around, for me, is if it would find its way on the chuck
itself, as in turning near the chuck.

Iggy, if you're not turning fast enough for that coolant to fling half way
across the shop floor, you aren't turning fast enough to justify
water-miscable coolant.


The solution is to make or install a chuck guard, and be done with it.

The improvements in finish, carbide tool life, etc, that coolant
brings, are rather dramatic. It comes with a few hassles, coolant
cleaning, but they are worth it.

The above assumes that your lathe is already set up for flood coolant,
has a sump, pump, shield in the back, chip tray that drains into the
sump, etc.

I really wish I had a good way to run flood on my Bridgeport, but I
cannot think of any way to do it.

There are two reasons that water-miscible coolants are used in industry:
First, they're cheap compared to oil. Second, they let you run your tools
balls-to-the-wall -- fast enough that tool life is already on the threshold
of deteriorating rapidly from the speed. That's where you want to be in
production turning. They do NOT tune those jobs for maximum tool life. They
tune them for lowest total production cost.

We used coolant in the small shop I worked in for one reason only: It was
cheap.

Because they're cheap, coolants can be economical overall in a commercial
shop, even if you aren't pushing surface speeds to the limit. But they don't
make a lot of sense in most hobby shops, unless you have a CNC mill with a
15,000 rpm spindle.

--
Ed Huntress