To coolant or not to coolant.

[jorogi]

I'm to the point of squeezing the last few cc's of cutting oil out of the gallon jug of Rapid Tap and am flabbergasted at the price for a replacement jug. (Lower island group buy ?)
My mill has a coolant setup, not installed yet and the Meuser could be set up reasonably easily for coolant as well (dangerous statement ?). The surface grinder is set up and I do use coolant on it perhaps 20% of the time.
My concern is that I'm a slob. I'll often leave an unfinished job set up at the end of the day and between jobs it is too often just a quick brush off of the mounting surfaces and go. My fear with coolant is that my sloviness will lead to unwanted issues that my machines don't deserve. I know the simple answer is to show my tools their due respect and clean them properly at the end of each day. Tried that but it's me we're talking about here, doesn't work. So how valid is my concern and are there any tricks or hacks to help alleviate my shortcomings ?

 

[YotaBota]

I'd go in with you an a jug.

I'm also looking for something like this as an applicator. The long straw should keep my fingers out of harms way, in theory.

 

[SightlessSeer]

I run flood oil on my Leblond Regal instead of coolant. Don't get me wrong it does make a bit of a mess, but it has no risk of rusting things (helps prevent that in fact) and in my unheated shop there is no risk of it freezing in the tank.

 

[cuslog]

I have a cutting oil in my lathe coolant tank, I got tired of the water based coolants. Mostly though, I just use a squeeze bottle of cutting oil on the lathe.
On the mill, recently, I've been using straight air nozzle to blow chips away so I'm not running them over again and a squirt of WD40 from a spritz bottle (I buy it bulk by the gallon).

 

[Chicken lights]

I'd go in with you an a jug.

I'm also looking for something like this as an applicator. The long straw should keep my fingers out of harms way, in theory.

View attachment 88604

Didn't Lee valley have something like that applicator?

Add a short chunk of clear hose if the tips too short?

 

[gerritv]

You can dilute RapidTap, I use that in my (blunt) needle tip squeeze bottle. My achines have a mql fogless air/droplet dispenser spitting out air and iso+light mineral oil. Nothing drips or floods.

 

[YYCHM]

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[1018Machine]

I have a handful of the squeeze bottle like Craig that i use for various small operations! But for the lathe when running aluminum I use a proper flood coolant system.

Amazon.ca

 

[jcdammeyer]

I'd go in with you an a jug.

I'm also looking for something like this as an applicator. The long straw should keep my fingers out of harms way, in theory.

View attachment 88604

I'll go in for part of a jug of rapid tap.

 

[Susquatch]

I have never used flood or mist and I don't miss it. I just use a drip bottle of the right good stuff for the metal I'm cutting. I don't use water based anything.

 

[mbond]

I would suggest always using some kind of hydrocarbon. There are many different kinds.

I have a couple of different grades of oil (don't ask me what they are) but I mostly use WD40 because I have it

 

[Golem Pens]

I've recently been trying this but those all look better... https://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B093Q6RMNR