What's that Lassie? You say that Joseph Gwinn fell down the old
rec.crafts.metalworking mine and will die if we don't mount a rescue
by Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:36:42 -0400:


The setup consists of a cheap 3-gallon coolant pump, some 3/8" vinyl
tubing going to a manifold bolted to a magnetic base stuck to the lathe
carriage. The manifold has a small ball valve that turns flow on and
off, and two needle valves with 1/8" copper tubing applicator tubes
about 15" long. Only one needle valve and tube is in current use.

One bends the tube so it ends just above the workpiece and is aligned
with the cutting bit, and adjusts the needle valve to drip coolant onto
the spinning workpiece.

I tested this by doing some cutoffs of 14L12 steel 1.5" diameter rod,
using a BXA-7 cutoff tool (0.125" wide HSS blade, normal rotation) and a
reversed Dorian 7-71 holder with 2mm wide inserts in a SGIH 26-2 blade
(reverse rotation), both manually fed. Both worked smoothly, and in
silence, at about 500 rpm. No drama at all.

At many hardware stores you can buy brass tubing in sizes that will
fit into one another nicely. You can solder up a nice "needle" that
you can set onto the workpiece right where the cut is to be made.
If you make it long enough, it will have a little spring to it so that
it will follow the cut dia. as you go.

--

Dan H.