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I finally stopped trusting the setup guy who told me 'coolant is coolant'
Had a guy at my shop, Ray, who ran the lathes for 15 years tell me that any old coolant would work fine in our Haas mills and I shouldn't waste money on the good stuff. I ran his way for about 3 months on a batch of 4140 parts and started seeing surface finish go to crap, plus my tool life dropped from around 40 parts per insert down to 12. Pulled the sump last Tuesday and the whole thing was sludge, smelled like a dead animal, and I spent 6 hours cleaning it out. Ray just shrugged and said 'never happened to me' which really got under my skin. Now I'm buying the right coolant and the difference in finish is night and day. Anyone else get burned by an old timer's shortcut that turned into a whole weekend of cleanup?
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avery_jackson1d ago
Had the same thing happen with way lube on an older mill. Guy told me the cheap stuff was fine and the auto lube would handle it. Two months later the ways were gummed up and the axis was sticking. What finally worked for me was keeping a log of what coolant and mix ratio I ran and how the finish looked, so when someone tells me a shortcut is fine I can point at the numbers instead of arguing. Also started checking the sump every couple weeks with a refractometer and skimming the tramp oil off, which sounds like a pain but it's way less time than that 6 hour cleanup you just did. Ray saying it never happened to him just means he never checked.
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