On Nov 25, 2018, Bob La Londe wrote
(in article ):

Who uses flood coolant on their manual lathe?

Do you get sprayed when using it? Do you waste a lot of coolant.

I was turning some 304 stainless yesterday on the 1440 and everything was
going fine until it started to get hot. Then it cooked inserts, and fast.

If you run flood do you stop using insert tooling?

Until now I've just used a cutting oil on the lathe when the cut seemed to
act like it needed it.

I do run flood coolant (Rustlick WS-5050 soluble oil) on my lathe (Clausing
5914) for many things. The coolant drains into the chip pan and is
recirculated, so it isnt wasted. Actually, evaporation of the water in the
coolant is the bigger issue. And the coolant active ingredients seem to
degrade over time, but this is slow.

WS-5050 as diluted is mostly water, and things do not get that hot unless one
is pushing or the coolant flow is too little; if pushing, the temperature is
limited by the coolant boiling on the tooling and workpiece.

I have fitted shields and rubber skirts to contain the spray, and for safety
(the spinning chuck is hard to see andblundering into it will hurt a lot).

I do use carbide and/or insert tooling without difficulty, but I dont push
it that hard. I dont think I have any ALOX coatings (mentioned by Ed H).
When I have pushed hard (steel chips turning blue in flight), I was using
uncoated cemented carbide tooling.
Joe Gwinn