Cutting Fluid/Coolant For Lathe

Joined
Jul 6, 2006
Messages
2
Location
South Florida
I have been using a Rustlick water soluble cutting fluid for cutting operations on a small lathe. I've been thinking about going to a non-water cutting oil instead. The issues are rust and tool life. Part of the problem may be that the lathe gets used infrequently. Does anyone have any thoughts or recommendations? Thanks in advance.
 
Try to find a machinist list to ask . Also , look on youtube .

I am not a machinest , but enjoy watching that type of bideos .

Did not realize how long water based coolants have been used . Watched a video this weekend . A company in Canada , during WW! , making 8" howitzer projectiles .

They were using water based flood coolant .
 
for my hobby lathe I use Tap Magic thick, a very thin coat applied over surface before each cut. If you make a big mess you used too much.

Or I use blast of compressed air, I have a tube rigged up, it cools well.

Rod
 
If used infrequently, don't use water-based coolant. For all the places I've used a lathe, mill, or band saw, we used it dry.
 
I'm a machinist, my dad has a machine shop and right now it seems like I've mostly been keeping the cnc lathe going. We order a coolant that comes in 5 gallon buckets from MSC called Astro-Cut, we've used the A & B but there are a lot of different ones, all of them you mix with water. We did have a 55 gallon drum from another shop that closed up that was a cutting oil that you mixed with water but the problem was that the water either evaporated out or burned off leaving the really thick oil behind. We also use tap magic for other applications and it works very well.

Sounds like you will be using this infrequently and I'm sure you would be fine with using a cutting oil.
 
look around and buy a "screw machine oil" some are ISO VG 10 or 22 never have a rust porblem again but clean out all the old water mixed stuff.
 
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