flood and way oil

[awetmore]

I've setup a flood coolant system now. I'm using Koolmist 77 as my coolant, mostly because I had a gallon of it from my previous attempts with mist cooling.

How do people lube their mill when running flood systems. Do you expect enough coolant to make it to the ways and lead screws and act as a coolant? Or do you use something tacky enough to keep the coolant away from those areas?

So far the flood cooling seems to be doing a much better job of flushing chips away from my cutter and keeping the cutter cool than mist or just air cooling. I'm able to run with a much deeper depth of cut too. I just need to make some minor modifications to my tub to get all of the coolant to flow towards the drain.

[mactec54]

Hi awetmore

You have to lub your ways with normal way oil, like Mobil #2, there are may others

Your cutting fluid will not lubricate your machine, it is a cutting oil, not a machine lubricant

[pfred2]

Your cutting fluid will not lubricate your machine, it is a cutting oil, not a machine lubricant

I use emulsified oil as coolant and it'll rust my machine if I let it sit on it too long.

I use chainsaw bar oil as way oil, it sticks like glue! Using oil for engine crankcases is not really such a good idea being as it contains a detergent to attract water to flash off in the cylinders. But to each their own!

[awetmore]

I already have lots of Mobil way oil (from my Southbend lathe and full size mill) and generally use that on the Taig. I just wondered what keeps the coolant from washing it away?

One thing that has generally bothered me on the Taig is that lubing the X is difficult since the ways are never exposed and there aren't any oil cups.

Koolstop 77 hasn't caused rusting issues for me on other machines in the past, but that was just using it as a misting system. Cleaning up after using it on flood seems like it would require a fairly extensive teardown of the mill, not just a simple wipedown of the milling table.

[ee_t]

I already have lots of Mobil way oil (from my Southbend lathe and full size mill) and generally use that on the Taig. I just wondered what keeps the coolant from washing it away?

Do you have rubber way covers?

Maybe bellows would be an improvement if its running underneath the rubber.

[mactec54]

pfred2

I guess you don't know to much about way oil Mobil #2 is just for lubricating machine slide ways, That is just one of the brands which is more common & easy to find

This is not engine oil

[awetmore]

I do have the standard rubber way covers. They help, but I still found coolant on top of the Y cross-slide today (right by the X leadscrew). There also isn't really a good way to get way oil into the X ways without pulling the table off. That isn't too big of a deal.

The rear way cover likes to flip over. Is the "top" or "far" end of it normally fixed to something?