Cold Saw Coolant?

[Gareth0123]

When I purchased my saw second hand (from an F1 TEAM), it came with a 180 tooth blade fitted as standard, and this served me well for about 12 months, but as it became blunt it started to rip the ERW tubing that made up the majority of my work at the time. I bought a new 225 teeth blade to combat this issue, and found this new blade to be quick, quiet(ish) and almost a pleasure to use when I began doing production runs in 8mm, & 10 mm thick flat bars, and 10Ø, 16Ø, 20Ø solid round bar the 225T was also ideal for thin wall box and 1/16th wall ERW. I was given a 140T by ESTS; my local steel supplier, as they had accidentally bought a 225mm dia blade instead of a 250mm dia for their cold-saw. When I took my blades in for resharpening at City Saws they gave me the option of buying one each of 140T, 180T and 225T blades for £10 each. These had been on their shelf for well over 12 months after another company took them to City Saws for resharpening and then they went out of business before returning to collect them.
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I tend to use the 225T blades virtually all the time these days, but I do use the 140T blades if I am cutting 75 X 50 X 6 Angle iron and 50 X 50 X 5 Box. The 180T blades tend to be used only on schedule 40 and CHS (Circular Hollow Section) especially 26.9 x 3.2 CHS, which I use a fair bit of these days.

 

[Windy Miller]

When I purchased my saw second hand (from an F1 TEAM), it came with a 180 tooth blade fitted as standard, and this served me well for about 12 months, but as it became blunt it started to rip the ERW tubing that made up the majority of my work at the time. I bought a new 225 teeth blade to combat this issue, and found this new blade to be quick, quiet(ish) and almost a pleasure to use when I began doing production runs in 8mm, & 10 mm thick flat bars, and 10Ø, 16Ø, 20Ø solid round bar the 225T was also ideal for thin wall box and 1/16th wall ERW. I was given a 140T by ESTS; my local steel supplier, as they had accidentally bought a 225mm dia blade instead of a 250mm dia for their cold-saw. When I took my blades in for resharpening at City Saws they gave me the option of buying one each of 140T, 180T and 225T blades for £10 each. These had been on their shelf for well over 12 months after another company took them to City Saws for resharpening and then they went out of business before returning to collect them.
+

I tend to use the 225T blades virtually all the time these days, but I do use the 140T blades if I am cutting 75 X 50 X 6 Angle iron and 50 X 50 X 5 Box. The 180T blades tend to be used only on schedule 40 and CHS (Circular Hollow Section) especially 26.9 x 3.2 CHS, which I use a fair bit of these days.

Thanks very much for the info there - I'll have to do some calculations to work out the pitch of the blade that I'm using - its a smaller diameter than yours, so I'll see if I can work out how it compares to the larger sizes.

I'm gradually collecting the bits to knock up a new pump - all I'm short of now is the non return valve which should arrive any day now. I have a roll of 4mm plastic tubing somewhere in the garage, so I'm almost there!

 

[Gareth0123]

When I initially modified the coolant system on my cold-saw I did install an 8mm (hose bore) none return valve at position "E" in the photograph between the additional reservoir (D) and in-line filter (C), but I gave up on it after 6 months or so. The original idea was to prevent cutting fluid draining back to the additional reservoir "D" and causing an air lock in the suction side hose directly before the pump. but it didn't work the intended way and caused some vacuum locking that required the pump to be hand primed at the beginning of most days.... I had used a tractor lift pump, and they come with a hand primer as standard.

I had used a non-return valve suitable for 8mm bore fuel lines because I had used 8mm bore hose and 1/4 BSP fittings throughout, but the NRV just couldn't keep up with the 2 ltr/min flow I was using, and was even struggling when turned down to 1 ltr/min. So I took the the NRV off, set the FCV to 1.5 ltr/min and have very happily left it at that for the last 3 years. Nowadays, the only time I have to manually prime the pump is after a quarterly deep clean of the saw and coolant system (I use my cold-saw a lot!), or if I have left the saw unused for over 3 weeks ..... Lo & I tend to only take holidays during the winter months and often go away somewhere warm and sunny for 3-4 weeks (India being my favourite).

 

[Windy Miller]

Resurrecting this old thread, can anyone suggest a good fish pond/tank pump to use for coolant?

 

[Gareth J]

I've used a couple of the very cheap, direct from China 240v submersible ones. They're still holding up but won't tolerate steel fines (a wier/ magnet trap needed).

If/when they break I'll replace them with the same. They've done better than they needed to for the £7 or whatever it was.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Resurrecting this old thread, can anyone suggest a good fish pond/tank pump to use for coolant?

Something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3000L-H-S...r-Pump-Fish-Tank-60W-Adjustable-/152582074625

 

[Windy Miller]

Would something like this be ok?

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=142338162665

I'd like it to be quite small to fit inside the coolant bottle, which will probably be a 5L spring water container.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Would something like this be ok?

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&alt=web&id=142338162665

I'd like it to be quite small to fit inside the coolant bottle, which will probably be a 5L spring water container.

Don't see any mention in that listing of adjustable flow rate?

 

[Gareth J]

One of the ones I'm using is like this one:
http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=111439928793&alt=web

A filter in the pump is probably not a great idea as it'll get gummed up in no time.

They're pretty robust little things. Even when they jam, you can scoop them out an they'll go again. The soluble oil has made the plastic a bit brittle but it's still going after over 3yrs of submersion so can't be too bad.

Adjust flow with a cheap flexible nozzle (also available for peanuts on eBay) or just reduce the size of the tube until you're at about the right flowrate. To be honest they don't flow masses even at full bore.

 

[Windy Miller]

Well I've got some thinking to do now. The pumps are cheap enough and easily available so it's a simple enough job to get it all working again, but I've gone and bought another saw from eBay. More or less new, and complete with brand new spare blade and less than half the price of a new machine.

So what to do with the old one? It owes me very little, so maybe fix it up and keep it as a spare? Flog it?

Decisions decisions!

As always, thanks very much for the advice!

 

[Windy Miller]

Well the new saw has arrived, complete with broken pump! New one on its way from Clarke though so it should be up and running soon.

In the manual for the saw, it suggests using Clarke's own brand of tapping and cutting oil, which I think resembles normal engine oil. No mention of soluble oil which I was expecting to use.

Should I take their advice, or can I mix up some normal 'white water' and run it on that? Somehow seems sort of wrong to run it with thick gloopy oil! I don't have any basis for that comment, just feels wrong!

 

[Gareth0123]

"white" coolant don't cut it (excuse the pun) you really need a proper soluble cutting fluid for the best results and to prolong saw blade life.

Currently I am using Westway High EP soluble cutting fluid with very good results. They do a 5 litre @ £21.99 and a 20 litre @£53.49

Westway Lubricants Limited
Contact details
Paul Tarnawskyj
Units 3-4
Planks Lane
Wombourne
West Midlands
WV5 8EB
United Kingdom

Phone:01902 854556
Email:sales@westwayoils.co.uk

 

[Windy Miller]

Thanks Gareth, I'll order some tomorrow.