Adding flood coolant to a grizzly g4003g gunsmith lathe

craigsoutdoorsports

H-M Supporter - Silver Member
H-M Supporter - Silver Member
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Getting tired or using oil when making cuts on the grizzly lathe. For those that have or have added a flood coolant I have a question.

I've never used a flooding coolant system on a lathe. Just always old school can, oil, cutting fluid of choice. Does the flooding type systems sling the water based coolants very bad or is it about like using a brush and cutting oil?

Thanks
 
It's messy . The coolant isn't real bad when only on the stock , but when it gets on your chuck is when it throws it back at you . They do make the little curved plastic guards to control this though . Coolant also goes rancid if you don't keep up with it . The Hardinges lathes all ran oil . Your legs would look like a teenagers face after a week or two . Oil soaked pants . :eek:
 
It's messy . The coolant isn't real bad when only on the stock , but when it gets on your chuck is when it throws it back at you . They do make the little curved plastic guards to control this though . Coolant also goes rancid if you don't keep up with it . The Hardinges lathes all ran oil . Your legs would look like a teenagers face after a week or two . Oil soaked pants . :eek:
Kinda what I figured which is why I’ve never went that route. Will be staying with my brush and oil. Thanks
 
Makes more sense for production situations than infrequent hobby tasks
-M
 
I use flood when drilling, just put the flow on the drill bit so it wont sling around, when parting I run a very low flow rate directed on the parting tool. since I usually part at 200 rpm or slower there's no mess. While threading I brush on some oil
 
flood coolant often puts unwanted swarf in places it was not meant to be, increasing wear on mating surfaces.
for a production machine, no big deal- the machine will eventually be replaced
for a home machine- the added wear potential keeps me from adding flood coolant, as i prefer to keep my machines forever
 
I had flood coolant on a S Bend 10K I owned years ago. Fantastic finishes! But quite messy, even with deflector. Stopped using it when I noticed
dark stains on the V ways where the carriage sat for a long time. Seemed like a rust potential, so I quit using it. This was with some sort of name brand soluble oil, turned white when mixed with water. Sure made for beautiful cutting though.
 
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