Thank you Mike Henry

Hangsterfer? With a name like that, it had better work.

What did it cost, and where?

Joe Gwinn

It's available from distributors only, for around $100+ per 5-gallon pail. I had some extra and passed along a sample to Iggy. So far as I know you can't get it from the normal distributors like MSC or Enco, which seems to be typical for the coolants that get recommended most by commercial shops.

I've been using it for nearly 2 years of very intermittent CNC milling and have had absolutely zero problems with odor or biological growth. I machine mostly aluminum and acrylic, on which it does a terrific job.

Mike

My pleasure - I still owe you for the help with that compressor a while back.

Thank you. Just to illustrate, I made some super long and shiny looking spiral swarf pieces, which seems to suggest that this lubricant is very good at reducing tool to material friction and aids material removal. Such swarf pieces do not come out without this metaoworking fluid.

i

Drat. Five gallons is far too much for me. I'm still working on my first gallon of soluble oil, bought a few years ago.

I've been using Rustlick WS-5050, which works very well (especially with flood cooling) for aluminum and steel, but is a bit annoying to handle. The hope is that vegetable oil will be nicer, although I was suspicious that it wouldn't work as well.

One problem I have had with the WS-5050 is that ropey lumps form in the coolant after a year of occasional use. The lumps are some kind of gel, and I filter them out with cheesecloth.

I got the same kind of ropey gel lumps in KoolMist #77, so I'm guessing that they both have the same water-soluble slippery agent in them.

Joe Gwinn

Maybe a distributor or Hangsterfer would give you a quart sample.

Could that be way oil? If not it sounds like you are getting some sort of emulsion. Do you check the coolant concentration and adjust periodically? A refractometer is an easy way to check the concentration.

Mike

I was thinking of that. I was also thinking that Hangsterfer should sell gallons through MSC or the like, as self-funding samples.

It is not way oil. Doesn't look like way oil, and I get it with the drill press, which has no such oil. It appears that something in the coolant is absorbing oxygen cand solidifying.

Joe Gwinn

Then perhaps your coolant is partially coalescing or separating in the mix. I've never had any problem in that regard with the Hangsterfer, but that's all I've ever used. Mixing the raw coolant with water can be tricky if one is to believe user reports and/or manufacturer's preparation instructions. Does your give any special instructions and how closely did you follow them?

Mike

I haven't been able to convince myself that I need one that badly.

Remixing does not work, and one can pick the gel lumps and ropes up with the bare hands.

There are no mixing instructions other than giving the suggested dilution range.

My usual approach for small quantities (such as to feed the mister) is to put water into a gallon plastic bottle, followed by concentrate, shake, top off with water, shake. For the 1 gallon coolant pump, I use the gallon bottle. For the 3-gallon coolant pump, I pour the concentrate into water while running the pump full bore with the output being directed back into the tank.

In all cases, I get a uniform mix. The shaken bottle works very quickly, while self-mixing by the coolant pump is far slower, but both approaches work.

The gel lumps formed much later, from initially uniform coolant at 10% to 15% dilution or so.

I also got gel lumps in the Kool Mist 77, which is pretty easy to mix.

The bottle feeding the mister is a total-loss system, with no recirculation, and yet gel lumps eventually formed and caused problems with spray generation. This happened with both WS-5050 and Kool Mist 77.

I assume that whatever forms the gel was supposed to perform some function, which is no longer done. I think the simplest solution is to completely replace the mixed coolant once or twice a year.

Joe Gwinn

Maybe your coolant has become too concentrated, which a refractometer could tell you. How do you make up for volume losses? Do you add plain water, straight coolant, or a diluted mixture of coolant and water?

Once lumps and ropes form it may be too late for simple mixing to help. Emulsions (if that's what the lumps/gels are) can be very difficult to break. Heat is one way.

I don't think that the instructions are commonly sent with the coolant. The manufacturer's web site should have info on mixing new batches and peparing make-up solutions. Have you checked there yet?

I believe that most manufacturer's recommend continuous mixing while adding raw coolant to water and slowly at that. As mentioned above, I'd check to see what the manufacturers recommend.

Perhaps they'd work longer if mixed differently. Or maybe something else entirely different is going on.

How long do the mixtures last before the lumps start to develop?

I don't use my mill much and even more infrequently use coolant and still replace the coolant once a year or so. The coolant tank is partially open though and the screens on the return system aren't very efficient at removing small bits of swarf, so my situation may be different than yours.

Most commercial coolants are good for a year. Now in most commercial shops..they go through a lot so this problem never crops up.

Get a small 110vt pump, put a timer on it and run it for an hour a day with the discharge side putting back into the tank at the farthest location from the suction side.

While this will increase the life span and help keep Booger Lumps from growing..its not the perfect solution. But it REALLY will help

Gunner, who uses only Oil, except for some spray misters, in all of his machines

'In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language.. and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.' Theodore Ro osevelt 1907

One (in the one gallon pump) did get too concentrated, and was extended with water. It was already pretty old by then. I don't know if it had lumps by then, but I would not be surprised.

The other, in a gallon jug, did not dry out, but it too got lumps.

Perhaps, but I have very little money on mixed coolant. I think I'll just replace it.

No, but this isn't rocket science.

I doubt it. It is fully mixed when I'm done.

It took at least a year. Gunner mentioned that the stuff is good for a year, which is what I'm seeing.

My coolant pumps have the standard hemisphere screens, so they don't catch the fines, which will most likely accumulate as sludge at the bottom of the tank. I have used cheese cloth to catch fines, but I don't know if it's worth the trouble. I suppose that one mucks the coolant tank out once a year to remove the sludge.

Joe Gwinn

Very smart idea Joe, I learned something worthwhile today.

i

Thanks, but this is what those moving belt skimmers are trying to automate.

Admit it - it's the recycling of ratty old pillows that you like the most.

Joe Gwinn