Gunsmithing Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

[ZenBiker990]

After spending six months to where I can physically stand at my lathe for about 15 minutes at at time, I'm ready to pick up on a project where I left off, which involves machining Ti 6Al 4V stock. I going to use flood coolant and unobtanium inserts; looking for experienced recommendations for coolant mix: moly D, of course; but oil or water base? Ratios? Feed rates? Thanks in advance.

 

[turbo54]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

Sorry I cant be more specific, but I've had no problem with Ti, using most plain jane water based coolants. I've found Ti to machine pretty readily and easily, with a few notable exceptions from stainless:

1. You've gotta get after it - no tiptoeing through the tulips. On a 1" bar in the lathe, you might dial up a .025" cut to turn off the bar, and actually get a .025" cut. Then, you dial up a .001" cut and only GET .0005.

2. Heat really, really builds in your workpiece. Flood cooling will help, but beware, because Ti has very low thermal conductivity, and heat can easily build, torching your inserts. I've had no trouble with TiN coat carbide inserts, and even HSS at times.

3. Hand tapping Ti is nearly impossible, and you'll break the tap 95% of the time. This is lessened if you drill larger and go for less threadform. If you power tap, it's much better, but will scare the bejesus out of you, because the tap will twist way more than you think is ok. Heat REALLY builds in the work when tapping....be careful.

In short, to sum up the machining of Ti:

Go balls-deep or go home

 

[LRI]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

Cimco 320 at 9 percent indicated. (1.5% correction factor with this coolant.)

Bad azz chit!

As stated, TI wants to be cut hard and heavy. RPM isn't the answer as its been my experience it just turns inserts to 3 mile island.

Slower SFM with more aggressive feedrates. Make sure you use flood coolant and stop long before you nuke an insert. Pushing it can result in work hardening, creating a pretty green spark, and incinerating your chip bed. You'll be seeing spots for days if this happens.

I set half of Dakota Arms on fire once machining TI in a manual mill. Was making a sight base for my 300M gun when the endmill went to chit and it shot a green spark into a pile of wood/aluminum chips.

What a party!

Have an extinguisher nearby-seriously!

Good luck


C.

 

[Keith Johns]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

Great info, seriously.

I dont really have a reason to make anything out of titanium but it'd be pretty kool. Ive heard it's very difficult so never dared try it. I'm still not going to but you answered a lot of questions I was wondering.
If/when I do I'll remember this

 

[fj40mojo]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: C. Dixon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Cimco 320 at 9 percent indicated. (1.5% correction factor with this coolant.)

Bad azz chit!

As stated, TI wants to be cut hard and heavy. RPM isn't the answer as its been my experience it just turns inserts to 3 mile island.

Slower SFM with more aggressive feedrates. Make sure you use flood coolant and stop long before you nuke an insert. Pushing it can result in work hardening, creating a pretty green spark, and incinerating your chip bed. You'll be seeing spots for days if this happens.

I set half of Dakota Arms on fire once machining TI in a manual mill. Was making a sight base for my 300M gun when the endmill went to chit and it shot a green spark into a pile of wood/aluminum chips.

What a party!

Have an extinguisher nearby-seriously!

Good luck


C. </div></div>

Funny story! I watched a guy blow up a shop vac once. He was dry lapping Ti on a lapping machine with 600 grit paper when he noticed some dust buildup that he thought he'd just vacuum up. Lots of static electricity buildup in a vacuum, long story short he got a lot of Ti dust atomized inside the vacuum with an electric discharge for ignition and BOOM. Ti fires aren't something to mess with, you'll need a special extinguisher, ABC no worky. We added a cascading flood coolant system to the lapping machine shortly after this incident. Used to pull a 5gal bucket of Ti fines out of it ever year and give them to a local that used them to make fireworks. Makes nice green stars.

 

[LRI]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

I know of someone personally that encountered similar experience with a shop vac.

Attempted to siphon gas out of a snowmobile with one. . .

Resulted in his Mom/Dad getting a new house!

 

[ScottWatkins]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

Titanium doesn't like to be machined. You can' t cut it like normal, it has to be "ripped" off. Get rough with it, you'll be OK. I used forming taps and they worked a million times better than a cutting tap. Especially on a blind hole because there is no chip. The best coolant I've used is Castrol Syntilo 9918. No other coolant can come close to this stuff. It dosen't get funky after a month of use or get scabs floating in the tank like other coolants.

 

[E. Bryant]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: fj40mojo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Ti fires aren't something to mess with, you'll need a special extinguisher, ABC no worky. </div></div>

Yeah, it's a really good idea to have an extinguisher with this label somewhere in a machine shop:

Also recommended for those who like to play with big rechargeable batteries.

 

[LRI]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

Amen! My 5000mah 11v lipos for my RC plane stuff are nutin to eff with.

250amp burst loading!

C.

 

[hero's machine]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

Perhaps I should hang one on my forklift......2500lb battery in there!

 

[E. Bryant]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Alloy

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: C. Dixon</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Amen! My 5000mah 11v lipos for my RC plane stuff are nutin to eff with.

250amp burst loading!</div></div>

Try stringing together eighty 60Ah (yeah - 60,000mAh) Thunder Sky cells into a pack. That's about 240V with a burst current well north of 1000 amps (our data acq is only good to 600A, so I'm guessing) in close proximity to my asscheeks!

I appreciate the heads-up on the flammability of titanium chips - the fire danger should be obvious given that metal's affinity for oxygen, but it really hadn't crossed my mind that it could pose such a hazard in the shop. Typical dumbass engineer, huh?

 

[LRI]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

I'll stick to my "little" airplanes!

C.

 

[ZenBiker990]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

Focus, guys. I don't care about airplanes and shop vacs, Titanium alloy requires lower fpm feed; I know about heat buildup at the tool. I've machined small Ti parts before, but not one this big. I was hoping somebody here might have some useful info on a flood coolant mixture to use on turning a 3" Ti allloy bar instead of telling me anecdotes about idiots using shop vacs to transfer gasoline. Seriously, ADD seems to rule. I'll just take it as "no, we don't know of any special coolant mixiture.". Thanks for the help, guys.

 

[ScottWatkins]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

What kind of "mixture" are you looking for? Did you read my post?

 

[ZenBiker990]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: BigMoneyGrip</div><div class="ubbcode-body">What kind of "mixture" are you looking for? Did you read my post? </div></div>

Yes I did, and I apologize to you for not thanking you for the information. Do you ever add Castrol Moly Dee to it?

Add:Just ordered 5 gal from MSC.

 

[ScottWatkins]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

I just use the 9918 mixed at 10%. The Moly Dee says it's not compatable with water based coolants. Are you just gonna squirt it on your work?
What coolant are you using now and what problems are you habing?

 

[LRI]

Re: Recipe for flood coolant to use on Titanium Al

Guess you missed mine too.

"Cimco 320 at 9%. . ."




FWIW Castol Moly D isn't a coolant. It's a cutting/tapping fluid. It also ranges in price from $16.00 to almost $30.00 for a 16oz bottle. Enco had a big sale on it a while back and I bought a couple cases of it.

Point being TI machines well. Tooling and the material just needs to be kept well below "Chernobyl" temperatures in order to do it. Coolant does this efficiently. Cutting fluid doesn't. If you were to fill your sump with it and use it as flood coolant you'd likely have the fire dept showing up from all the smoke. Especially if your turning the stuff on a lathe.

As suggested, it's also non compatible with water based coolants. It'll just float to the top of a coolant sump the same as way oil does. In month it'll go sour and smell like a foot if you don't recover it.

Only reason I know this is cause I use a lot of it for chambering. Mixed 50/50 with Marvel oil or ATF it makes for a really nice chamber.

Good luck.