Cheap cutting fluid

[ftkalcevic]

I'm looking for a cheap source of cutting fluid.

I want something to use manually when turning on the lathe for the finishing cut. At the moment I'm using Rocol RTD, which works great but is expensive - $30 for 500ml, $200 for 5l.

I'm told RTD is a sulfur based cutting fluid and is a good general purpose cutting fluid. I just watched some lathe DVDs and the operator used a similar liquid, but used it more abundantly than I do.

Does anyone know of a cheaper similar product? I'm not really sure what is available or if that is the going price?

Thanks,
Frank

[krak]

Cooking oil, many of the bio safe oils are just that.

[MarineMachinist]

I use Tri-Cool synthetic. I am not sure of the price, maybe $25/gallon but it is 1 cup coolant to 1 gallon of water...

I seem to get a pretty good cut from it, and it smells really good too, kinda smells like an energy drink... makes me thirsty when I use it. LOL.

[Vermiculite]

As flood coolant on my milling machine I am using cutting fluid from Trade Tools Direct. It is very cheap but I am a bit cautious with it as I have not seen a MSDS. I am no expert but I am happy with it. A friend of mine uses it in a spray bottle for drilling. It is soluble oil and is mixed at something like 1:10-20. Can’t remember for sure but it was something like $7 for 2 litres.

[Herbertkabi]

I use different commercial fluids. The cost of does not matter much because even less than "1 cup coolant to 1 gallon of water" ... at that I have near closed system with two step filtering.
The main headache for me is coming awful itching my hands when even smallest contact with ... seems Im totally verged into allergy. Mostly the night after hard working day looks like real hell
Gloves do not help mach ... comes snaged in few minutes or/and my hands will perspire
The ony way to offload is day or two of timeout

Any more fatefellows?

cheers,
herbert

[grf]

As flood coolant on my milling machine I am using cutting fluid from Trade Tools Direct. It is very cheap but I am a bit cautious with it as I have not seen a MSDS. I am no expert but I am happy with it. A friend of mine uses it in a spray bottle for drilling. It is soluble oil and is mixed at something like 1:10-20. Can’t remember for sure but it was something like $7 for 2 litres.

do you have a link to the product? i tried to find it online but no luck.

[Vermiculite]

I haven't seen it online, only in their store. I had a look at the bottle yesterday and it was more like $9 for 1 Litre and the ratio is 1:30. Still cheap. You could probably email them. Otherwise maybe try Hare & Forbes for soluble oil. Somebody with more experience should able to give an alternative source of reasonably priced cutting fluid in Australia.

[grf]

thanks for replying.
9 per liter is more or less what hf are asking for (50$ for 5 liters)

[Need TECH Help!]

I use different commercial fluids. The cost of does not matter much because even less than "1 cup coolant to 1 gallon of water" ... at that I have near closed system with two step filtering.
The main headache for me is coming awful itching my hands when even smallest contact with ... seems Im totally verged into allergy. Mostly the night after hard working day looks like real hell
Gloves do not help mach ... comes snaged in few minutes or/and my hands will perspire
The ony way to offload is day or two of timeout

Any more fatefellows?

cheers,
herbert

Herbert,
I have a similiar issue with my skin, one thing i found that helps alot is cover hands with baby powder and use Latex Free Nitrle Gloves.

HTH
Troy

[RCaffin]

The main headache for me is coming awful itching my hands when even smallest contact with ... seems Im totally verged into allergy.

Yep, that is a common (among machinists) allergy. No cure.
Try switching to cooking oil: that does not have that effect.

Cheers

[atlasworxs]

Cooking Oil.

[Need TECH Help!]

I recently came across a new coolant that i have not noticed a alergic reaction to. EZ-Kool .... Recyclable Machining and Grinding Coolant

But more than that, is the way the coolant is sent. They send you the Coolant Concentrate in a 5gal bucket or drum. And you add your own water. I bought a 5 gallon bucket that cost me only about $8 bucks to send. Even though the shipping company destroyed it somehow, David from EZ-Kool sent me another bucket that was twice the concentrate.

Ive been using it for about a month and have no complaints at all. I purposely mixed my first batch very very thin, (1 gallon bleach jug, with only about 1/8 to 1/4 inch of coolant mix in jog) and left chips and coolant on mill over night, actually a couple of days, and NO rust at all.

Smallest they sell is 5 gallon pails, but for $60 bucks a pail that makes about 80 gallons, thats pretty nice.

HTH
Troy

P.S.
No connection with them,
only a new happy customer.