Cutting fluids

G

Gary Ocock

Member
What cutting fluid are you guys using? I'm looking for something to use to turn stubs crown etc. on stainless steel using coated triangle inserts. I have other stuff I use to chamber.
Over the years everything I find the EPA eventually takes off the market. If you read this and don't want to post a reply, but have a recommendation, please email me at onehole150@gmail.com.
Thanks

Gary Ocock
 
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Gary - for chambering, I like Viper's Venom. For general machining, our go-to is used 30-W motor oil (underscore the word "used"). Many may scoff at this, but it cuts as good as all the others we've tried. And like you, we've tried most of them.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Gary Ocock said:
What cutting fluid are you guys using? I'm looking for something to use to turn stubs crown etc. on stainless steel using coated triangle inserts. I have other stuff I use to chamber.
Over the years everything I find the EPA eventually takes off the market. If you read this and don't want to post a reply, but have a recommendation, please email me at onehole150@gmail.com.
Thanks

Gary Ocock
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I agree with Lee, thirty weight motor oil seems to work just fine although I use more high speed steel than I do carbide.
 
A cut above

Gary, I have used two cutting oils. They are trans-sultex-H which contains chlorine and Ashburn Mike-O-Thread dark cutting oil. I prefer the Mike-O-Thread. It is more viscous and seems to produce a better finish. BTW Congratulations on your zero agg. You must have ate your Wheaties that morning. Tim
 
Back in the day...Kodak had/has always been very conscious of what cutting fluids their shops used because of work efficiency and workers health issues. Water soluble coolants that were approved by EPA were used where high volume metal removal were taking place. In that instant a product made by Americas largest machine tool manufacturer, Cincinnati Miacron's, Cimcool was used. It can be safely and easily made "biogood'.

As to spot cutting fluid needs like hole drilling on vertical drill presses and horizontal drilling and reaming (like we do barrels) we used petroleum based oils similar to Rigid brand cutting and threading oils. If you go to your local plumbing supplier or building/lumber dealer you will find two types of "Rigid" pipe threading oils. I've used both for many years in barrel chambering and the Rigid oil made for threading stainless steel pipe is some better. On small "tool room" size lathes used by most of us using squirt cans or drip brushes a lubricant like Rigid oil for Stainless steel is the best you can do.

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cutting oil and agg

Thanks guys for the recommendations.

Tim -- you disappoint me. I was sure you were going to recommend some home made concoction; like Texas cow dung blended with the Midland toads and a heaping glass of home made tequila. Not to drink the stuff when chambering, but using it crown.

Thanks about the agg. Long story short – I didn’t have high hopes for that barrel, but I thought I’d give it a try at Visalia. Sat. 2 aggs I tried all my usual stuff to get it to shoot small. Nothing really worked though. Sun. am. I started out with a light load of 133 with no luck. Second group on, I went the other way stuffing 133 in the case and seating the bullet on the Jam. It as like I was shooting another gun; shots were going into the same hole like I was shooting in no condition. Sun. pm after the lunch break I tried a couple of other seating depths with very little success. I think mostly it was the wind conditions as am. I shot mostly left to right and pm. shot mostly right to left as the L-R wasn’t there.

GO
 
Gary Ocock said:
Thanks guys for the recommendations.

Tim -- you disappoint me. I was sure you were going to recommend some home made concoction; like Texas cow dung blended with the Midland toads and a heaping glass of home made tequila. Not to drink the stuff when chambering, but using it crown.

Thanks about the agg. Long story short – I didn’t have high hopes for that barrel, but I thought I’d give it a try at Visalia. Sat. 2 aggs I tried all my usual stuff to get it to shoot small. Nothing really worked though. Sun. am. I started out with a light load of 133 with no luck. Second group on, I went the other way stuffing 133 in the case and seating the bullet on the Jam. It as like I was shooting another gun; shots were going into the same hole like I was shooting in no condition. Sun. pm after the lunch break I tried a couple of other seating depths with very little success. I think mostly it was the wind conditions as am. I shot mostly left to right and pm. shot mostly right to left as the L-R wasn’t there.

GO
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That's amazing! Just goes to show you that sometimes we just hit on a magic combination that works! Do you suppose the solar eclipse had anythiing to do with it? :rolleyes:

Good for you Gary

Gene Beggs
 
Gene Beggs said:
That's amazing! Just goes to show you that sometimes we just hit on a magic combination that works! Do you suppose the solar eclipse had anythiing to do with it? :rolleyes:

Good for you Gary

Gene Beggs
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Gary, we use a lot of cutting oil in my shop. Our primary cutting oil is Trans Sultex D.

But for reaming chambers, I have never found anything better than Rigid Dark, the same oil they use in pipe threading machines. You can get it at Graingers or MSC.

https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/74807769
 
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Jackie I thought it was you a few years back that mentioned your shop uses Mobilmet 766 thread cutting oil so I picked up a gallon but I also could be wrong?

JLouis
 
Rigid dark sulfur oil with Tap Magic added for steel. WD-40 for aluminum. I used to use Buttercut for steel, but havent found it for sale lately. Lard oil or filtered bacon grease work well also.
 
MilGunsmith said:
Rigid dark sulfur oil with Tap Magic added for steel. WD-40 for aluminum. I used to use Buttercut for steel, but havent found it for sale lately. Lard oil or filtered bacon grease work well also.
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Ditto on the WD-40 for Aluminum. Great for tapping, milling, threading, or turning.

I wish they still made the old TapMagic. The stuff that smelled like cinnamon. That stuff, when mixed with any sulphurized cutting oil was like a "tool bit in a can".

Funny story about that stuff. Years ago, I was doing some Lathe work, and one of those big black roaches was crawling up the wall. I aim the can of TapMagic at him, hit him, and in 10 seconds he was dead.

No wonder they outlawed it.:rolleyes:
 
Gary Ocock said:
Thanks guys for the recommendations.

Thanks about the agg. Long story short – I didn’t have high hopes for that barrel, but I thought I’d give it a try at Visalia. Sat. 2 aggs I tried all my usual stuff to get it to shoot small. Nothing really worked though. Sun. am. I started out with a light load of 133 with no luck. Second group on, I went the other way stuffing 133 in the case and seating the bullet on the Jam. It as like I was shooting another gun; shots were going into the same hole like I was shooting in no condition. Sun. pm after the lunch break I tried a couple of other seating depths with very little success. I think mostly it was the wind conditions as am. I shot mostly left to right and pm. shot mostly right to left as the L-R wasn’t there.

GO
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GO, question, what vintage (year) was the V133 you were "stuffing" cases with? I had some '02 that would work on. BUT???

Oh, and Grats on that world shaking agg.


.

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Just looked at the label while filling my squirt can. Rigid Premium Extreme Performance threading oil. This is the product Rigid says is best on stainless steel.

Other brands like Sun Sunecut works well if you want to buy a 55 gallon drum.

Got this Rigid at a local Lowes.

.
 
I've used the Rigid cutting oil for threading and chambering 416R S.S. barrels with good success. I then tried Vipers Venom thinking this would be an improvement but I then experienced a lot of, what I'll call, chattering. I was using a hand-held reamer holder, of my design, that is held by the thumb and two fingers so I was only feeding the reamer very lightly. The reamer would catch and release repeatedly. At the time I wasn't sure if this was the result of the Vipers oil or my reamer becoming dull. This was a PTG reamer and was the third barrel that I was reaming with it.
 
HiWall - I'm using Viper's right now because I still have a bottle. Never had chatter problems with it. But truth be told, under the borescope it doesn't seem to provide any better finish than used 30-W (which has always given us very nice chambers).

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Louis.J said:
Jackie I thought it was you a few years back that mentioned your shop uses Mobilmet 766 thread cutting oil so I picked up a gallon but I also could be wrong?

JLouis
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It seems my brother orders in different cutting oils on a whim. We just got a drum of this to try in out trepanning Lathe, and out mill we use to cut large keyseats.

In my opinion, they are all good cutting oils for manual style work.

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19906&stc=1&d=1503578952
 

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Gene Poole said:
Is anybody but me using water-based flood coolant?
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Gene, the pertinent word here is coolant.

In high speed, high production machining centers, the object is to keep tool temperatures at a level that does not compromise the tools integrity. There are some excellent water based cutting fluids that combine ample cooling and tool lubrication.

But in most manual work, where surface feet per minute rates are considerably lower, the lubrication of the tool becomes paramount.

We used to use the old water based cutting oils in our milling machines. But EPA regulations more or less outlawed these, so we now use the same sulphurized black cutting oil in these as well.

Here is a 7 inch diameter trepanning setup on our big Turret Lathe with Sultex D as the cutting fluid.

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19907&stc=1&d=1503672475

In our big band saws, we still use a water based coolant, this is it.....

http://benchrest.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=19908&stc=1&d=1503673316

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I use water-based coolant (Hocut 795MP-RHS) for all the operations I used to use cutting oil for except for threading. I still use sulfur-based oils for threading. Chambering was the most recent changeover. I have a through-barrel system now and I love how the coolant performs.
 
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