Question is do you actually need a coolant pump? What sort of work do you envisage doing that will need flood coolant, plenty of us manage without pumps maybe just adding a bit of liquid with a brush or squirty bottle.

J

Edited By JasonB on 09/09/2014 08:11:51

Hi Alan,

Like Russell I too have used a windscreen washer pump to circulate coolant. Details of my set up are here:

http://mikesworkshop.weebly.com/coolant-pump-system.html

Mike

Alan, it is so easy to set up a gravity fed drip, this in many cases is all you will need. A container and a small tap/control and perhaps a bit of flexible tubing. There are plastic nozzles and click in tubes with taps already fitted. I have never used forced cooling cutting oil. I have only ever seen it on NC machines where you cannot see the job being done. It gets everywhere and you will get soaked. Gravity fed you will have no electrics to deal with.

Clive

Usually cut dry, but for parting off use soluble oil syphoned from a 1 Litre bottle on a shelf over the lathe. Flow is controlled by a home made needle valve with a 1/16" nozzle, mounted on a stem on small pot magnet.

Usually set to a steady drip. The needle valve allows fine adjustment as the level in the bottle falls

Parting off tool is zero rake, with front face ground at slight angle, (in hope of clean back face to work) mounted inverted in the back toolpost .

Crude but pretty effective.

Howard

I used a central heating pump which I had left over (or you can buy a cheap one from Screwfix for under 40 pounds). As you can see from typical flow characteristics, CH pumps are ideal for this application. Good static head and high flow rates, don't mind being stalled or static and can tolerate some grit and crap. I got a camping water container and dug out various plumbing fittings and was able to slap something together in a couple of hours. This was for my mill but would work fine on the lathe.

There are some pictures in my album but they were taken as I dismantled the machine for export so it's even more messy than normal, honest. You can just about make out the brown/orange pump and the blue tank. I parked a supermarket basket underneath in case any leaks developed but it isn't ready to happen yet. The return hoses are jammed fairly tight into holes in the tank near the top. I have one of those generic snap lock magnetic hose nozzle things at the workpiece.

If you are going to use the machine anywhere near its limits for any length of time with HSS tools, if you want to get a move on, coolant is going to be helpful for tool life. I mostly use carbide tools now which are used dry although I flood the indexable parting tool when parting with feed, as it's operating way below ideal cutting speeds for carbide and it seems to help the finish. Apart from that, the only time I use coolant on the lathe is for drilling large holes where a lot of heat is generated and the drills are expensive. It's got to be worth it just for that.

Murray

I've given up fighting W8, so the pics are sideways as ever.

Edited By Muzzer on 10/10/2014 06:39:57

Alan I have a coolant tank with pump which was given to me. It had never been used but the proprietary pump was frankly unreliable. I bought a small pump designed for use in a pond. Making sure it had sufficient power to lift about 2metre.

It has been in regular use for nearly 3 years and it works beautifully. Cost as I recall was about £9.50 from a compnay I found on the internet. HTH.

Yes it will work.

Mine does you just need one with enough head to reach the work.

I use an old 5lt model fuel bottle as the reservoir. hozelock and hose pipe provided the return from the drip tray.

The only thing i would add is fit a filter or strainer to the drip tray end. Swarf in the fluid gets very gungy and is great at tearing up the impellor. Yes i found out the hard way.

Regards Clive