Fired a guy who told me to stop using coolant mist - big mistake

Had this older machinist named Ray come work for me part time. He kept telling me to ditch the mist coolant on our Haas mills and go flood coolant only. Said the mist was messing with our surface finish and burning through tooling faster. I thought he was just set in his old ways so I ignored him for about three months. Then I finally tried running a job with straight flood on a complicated aluminum part. Took my cycle time down by almost 15 percent and my inserts lasted twice as long. Now I'm kicking myself for wasting all that time and money. Has anyone else had a veteran operator give advice you brushed off at first?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_nina14d ago

Ray was my mentor at my first shop job, total grouch but he knew his stuff. He kept telling me to quit using WD-40 on everything because it was just making a mess and drying out the ways. I thought he was crazy because everyone I knew swore by it. About a year later I tried his way, just using straight cutting oil where it mattered, and I noticed my machine stayed cleaner and the slides felt smoother. Took me forever to admit he was right about that one. Your experience with the coolant mist sounds like the same kind of thing, sometimes those old guys just have a point buried under all the grumbling.

the_jason14d ago

Right? Old man at my shop swore by kerosene for cleanup. Hated admitting he was right.