- Joined
- Oct 29, 2012
- Messages
- 1,329
Point taken. Oil is off the table. I have no intention of creating an explosive atmosphere.A very large, open vat of something vaguely flammable in a workshop seems insane. Adding a device that will successfully atomise it at extreme pressure doing a job that's going to generate heat seems doubly insane. Atomised oil ignites very readily.
At very best you're going to get a sticky mess over everything in the immediate vicinity and probably cause a health hazard requiring breathing gear while operating. At worst a very large fire that's quite challenging to put out.
I'm the first to applaud original thinking, but this is destined to end badly if pursued. Water is ideal - as has already been explorer - because other than the pressure its built up to, its about as safe and stable as it gets.
I appreciate you taking the time to acknowledge the safety aspect. Too often it is assumed the dangers are known. In this case however, they are. I served aboard a submarine and part of my training was dealing with extreme pressure fluids & gasses. I've seen the grotesque pictures of what happens. I understand the difference between high pressure lines & fittings, and not. If I go forward with this and post something that someone else might try to emulate, I will be sure to highlight the safe way of doing it.Another safety concern is oil being blasted through skin at high pressure. It's a very nasty injury and can easily lead to sepsis and amputation. Anything high pressure - even air - blasted at a body part is no laughing matter, but oil is particularly nasty as there's really no biological mechanism to break it down and clear it. One wrong move or a failure of pipework and you're in a bad situation. We all know what it's like when developing something and tinkering...Your best bet is to find a commercial water jet setup second hand, but again: please be super careful if you're going to play with super high pressure fluids of any kind! There's very real danger of quite serious injury in what might otherwise seem a non-obvious way. You're well into the realms of needing properly rated pipes and crimped connections; it's not the kind of stuff you can throw together in a shed with jubilee clips.
Regrading water in a diesel pump: Diesel is actually quite a good lubricant. A small amount of anything else - even petrol - will trash an injector pump very quickly. I've swapped a fair few that have suffered from water or incorrect fuel.
What about adding some water soluble CNC cutting fluid concentrate to the water? That might provide some supplemental lubrication that might be missing from the glycol mix. I imagine it might take some empirical discovery (and a few destroyed pumps) to get the mix right, if it works at all.The clearances in a diesel injector pump are very fine and water is not a very good lubricant, the pump will most likely seize up, and even if it doesn't it will very quickly corrode and then fail.