Product category:
Cutting lubricants, coolants, systems and treatment
News Release from: Castrol UK | Subject: Carecut fluid
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 07 March 2005
Cutting fluid does not mist in CNC autos
Having already acquired a CNC automatic, a small parts manufacturer saw a second working with a different cutting fluid that did not mist - so it changed its supplier.
Two Citizen machine demonstrations so impressed GDS Design that, at the first demonstration the company bought a new M20 and at the second changed to the Castrol Carecut fluid that a similar machine was running The company also moved its lubricants business to Optimum Metalworking, a specialist metalworking and fluids support company working with Castrol
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 10 Jun 2003 at 8.00am (UK)
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GDS Design is a small-parts manufacturer specialising in working with titanium and stainless steel.
Most of the company's high volume and intricate machining is done on three Citizen sliding head machines - an M20, L20 and B12 - all of which run Castrol's Carecut ES2.
GDS bought its first machine, the M20, after seeing a demonstration during an open day at the N.C.
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Running two new sliding-head CNC machines at speed with a conventional chlorine-free mineral oil caused serious overheating problems until the user changed to a synthetic cutting fluid.
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When TRW Automotive began losing production time due to fungal problems in machine tools, they decided to take on a total fluid management programme and saved some GBP 150,000 in 3 years.
Engineering showroom.
Then, as Andy Sell of GDS says, at a later open day they saw a similar machine running Carecut and liked the fact that there was no misting, they could see the workpiece and Citizen were recommending it.
As he explains "We specialise in machining titanium, which means that the machines are mostly running at high feeds and low speeds, and the heavy cutting puts a lot of pressure on tools".
"However, when we occasionally machine with steel the machines run at high rpm and tend to atomise the cutting fluids into the atmosphere".
"We had been experiencing problems with the thicker, heavier mineral-based oil we were using - it was misting and, as it was also clinging to the swarf, more oil was being discarded with the waste".
"So, when we saw how Carecut was performing we decided to try it in all our machines." He reports that the greater flexibility allows GDS to run drilling and turning operations faster for the same tool life or slower for longer tool life, which has increased efficiency by as much as 25% on certain applications and has led to significant cost savings.
He says that having used Carecut ES2 for a year they have seen across-the-board improvements in costs, the working environment and efficiency, and estimates that the change to Carecut, together with the fitting of an air filter, has improved air quality in the machine shop by 400%, making it cleaner than the air outside! He adds that Carecut works really well when drilling titanium, performs much better than the previous fluid in cutting operations and, as well as being biodegradable, separates much more efficiently in their extractor system.
Commenting for Optimum, John Powell says: "We provided initial technical support for Carecut ES2 to ensure GDS obtained the best results from its machining operations with difficult materials".
"They were impressed with its overall performance and, because they are also very environmentally conscious and want to reduce waste disposal costs, they now specify Castrol ester-based slideway, hydraulic and plant lubricants.".
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