Had a temp employee spit chewing tobacco juice into the machine. I went off on him like you couldn't imagine. Made him clean the the machine out and coolant. Called the temp agency & fired him after he got done.
@@DNANDROID 95 gallons of coolant isn't cheap to replace. Plus downtime from a production job, 6hrs @ 90.0hr. All because of a disgusting habit and common sense to spit in a cup or trash can.
@@fryer05maverick31 i assume you left out the part where he chose to ignore you after you addressed the issue, informing him of his mistakes and had no choice as he was unwilling the correct his mistakes. He probably watched others before him doing it all the time. Cigarette butts in the coolant. I reckon you would think about math operator to do that and that's why it takes you off cuz somebody told you not to do it and you probably don't like being told what to do.
I have no complaints when it comes to cleaning the gear myself. Finding management that will allow a machine to be taken out out of service for the time needed however. I had a manager who wouldn't permit tank cleaning because of the time and cost of the coolant change. He no longer works in my shop after an expensive endmill for titanium failed early in its life. My programming was blamed, and checked. The tool supplier gave me a passing grade and said the coolant quality was to blame for the failure. Coolant is cheap, tools cost money when they die early.
I have a large flat bed grinder in my cell. It's the money maker atm. But the higher ups keep it in production even though it desperately needs the 800l of hydraulic oil that's sat in the oil stores waiting to be put in.
But the problem is that some managers and owners come around and are like "Why is this tool down? Why is it not being used?" and even after you tell them "We are doing the recommended preventative maintenance!" they go "Don't do it! Takes too long, wastes too much time!" Then when something breaks down the line, they don't want to hear "Well... I was following the instructions given to me by you. Yes, I knew this was going to happen and I warned you that it was most likely going to happen!" Learned that from my Great-Uncle, bless his departed soul, who ran into this exact issue back 28+ years ago.
Titan, I went through the same thing except for the urine. 15 years ago Blaser came in and educated us and never had this problem again. The best coolant I ever used.
I used to run an oilfield machine shop the welders and machinists were always fighting about something. The machinists were complaining about the Johnson Bandsaw coolant reeked bad. well come to find out one of the welders was peeing in the tank on night shift for some payback for something and everytime something was cut on the saw the whole shop smelled God Awful. we had a little ass eatin meetin about that. Shell Dromus B coolant used to go bad pretty fast.
I've seen stuff that looks like black mold growing in coolant, and that can't be healthy to breath. A lot of companies don't give a crap about working conditions. It's sad. I like your shop though, top notch.
As someone who works in a shop that let's machines not be cleaned for several years, you have no idea I'm glad to hear you say that you clean them. Not enough shops clean there machines enough. Both from a machining perspective and a health perspective
@@idkwt2use he means its bad for ur health when you have bacteria in the coolant it can irritate your skin very badly and your body can also develop something like an allergy againt coolant
@@simonhygrell4426 oh no I know. When I started at my workplace I developed some ugly rash almost like wartz on my hands... I always blamed either the solvent or coolant.
Worst story for me, 14 years of no maintenance on 18 machines. Not only was there hydrogen sulfide issues, there was a powdery mildew that formed in the chip layers in the tray. When I started, the “old school” machinists would spit in the machine. Every machine I filled daily was a translucent rust color and would take 20 gallons of a milky swisslube and turn it the same color (almost a 50% fill up). Boss let me change my machines coolant, several issues were immediately fixed on parts coming from my machine. Became the best quality and efficient operator on the floor. Now I show others the right way, and I have changed out 6 other machines. Saved the company tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. To boot, my bay is the only clean bay in the whole shop and my parts and talents are premiered to our customers. Owner is talking about putting in a new DMU 50 and guess who is going to be running it??? Yours truly!!!!
Start your own business Benjamin trust me you'll be lots happier, your currently your bosses slave and he's taking full advantage of you riding your coat tails and you're getting nothing for it! Start your own business and DO NOT do what you know the other fools do. People will want to work with and for you if you provide standards and disciplines of excellence, Titan is one of the best examples to acknowledge and in doing so he has bragging rights that not many can deny💪
It's people like you that make coming to work a pleasure I can't stand nasty habits and dirty machines just shows a lack of pride in your work and a lack of respect for your workplace and team
I owned a machine shop for many years. I had 2 skimmers and aquarium aerators on my machines and almost never had coolant problems. Twice a year we dedicated one day to pull the coolant tanks to drain and steam clean them. It's a job that has to be done if you want maximum performance from your coolant.
i have seen a dead rat in a coolant tank when i was working in a company . They never cleaned those tanks. Man that was nasty . These guys are lucky to have a machine shop like that. I wish i could work for titans of cnc and learn the new technology new machines . The great team . Keep it up Titan you are doing a great job man.
Saw a guy dump his watered down coke from lunch in the saw sump. I said, What the frick Stanley. He saw no problem with it at all. Then I had to splain to him how that was a problem, and he was receptive.
I've worked with so many people that gave me crap and made fun of me for always keeping my work area clean. They always had the excuse, "well I've been busy doing work!". They also said this while i was cleaning at the end of the day and they were having beers. Love a clean shop!
I've had people ridicule me for being clean, organized and on top on my equipment. Needless to say NONE of these people are still involved in machining. This was in the eighties so I was way ahead of the 5S curve. Idiots for not having common sense and pride in their trade. If they have no respect I have nothing to do with them.
I just started at a shop 2 weeks ago, got hired to run the CNC Lathe but since I had a tiny bit of experience on Haas's they put me in the milling department. Within two weeks I learned more than I knew about turning in 4 months and now I am setting up and running the 5 Axis UMC 750 and theres a dude whos been there for 6 years who tried giving me shit for sweeping my work area, "How many times you gonna clean today" was what he told me. Its funny because it really seemed like he was just butt hurt that the brand new guy was running parts on the brand new 5 axis instead of him even though he is way more qualified. I feel the management sees my drive and that I am trustworthy so they are putting a lot resources into training me uo quickly. It looks like being the only guy who sweeps his work area payed off.
Dude I get that as a Chef lol. Little do people realize that consistent quick habits actually make you more productive, Clean area, clean mind. It is true. I have converted quite a few slobs over to the clean side bc they realize they actually do less effort in the end not tripping themselves up. Any biz this is true. Every job I have had I have been the anal retentive guy.
I went through that! Complained complained complained…. Company thought they could RECYCLE USED COOLANT!!! I threatened to call osha a number of times then quit cuz my health and well being is more important that a shitty work environment.
The minimill I run I have a water filtration system filtering out small chips and sediment and one of the coalescers that titan has recommended and haven't had any issues with stench, I have drained the tank on the minimill and scraped out the tank itself as much as I could since it is part of the machine and refilled it with cleaned coolant only once, and the only other thing I do is just keep the tank topped off and works great.
Piss and chewing tobacco spit/pouches were common finds in machines at my old shop. I ALWAYS wore plastic sleeves and gloves every time I operated any of those machines.
I never seen a guy pissing in a machine that people work on. If anyone I worked with did, I am sure it would lead to a real fight and a whole bunch of new rules for the shop..
one of my colleagues spitting in his machines till these days, coolant smell rottens never cleans it and no skimmer. i refused to work on his machines when he's off lead to a big fight with boss. i still didn't run his machines.
There was a case in the UK about 40 years ago, where urine in the turbine oil at a power station caused corrosion in a hydraulic control system, leading to an overspeed and a catastrophic unscheduled self disassembly of a 400MW generating set.
Its funny, as a hand-on supervisor, just last night I cleaned out one of our machine reservoirs that was getting to ridiculous levels of stink (I work at a small automotive supplier). It is shocking how little anyone (at my level or above) cares about preventative maintenance. Numbers, numbers, numbers are the only thing anyone wants to talk about.... until we have an audit...
We _always_ kept our coolant clean, and never let oil layers build up in the sumps, it's a huge deal keeping coolant in top condition. We'd completely swap out all the coolant in the shop once every 3 months.
I've got a pretty nasty story. So before I started working at my shop I heard a story of a guy getting caught choking his chicken in a few of the machines. We have some pretty big pallet changing toyodas you can walk into. They ended up using a black light and had to clean out and check all the machines he was running after they fired him.
This urinating in the machines thing was way more common than a lot of owners know lol. My dad was in the biz 50 years and said it used to SOP and an unspoken expectation. Super messed up stuff those old timers used to do or tolerate.
The guys in the shop love this coolant. So much cleaner. No complaints about smells, rashes, irritation's...nothing. BTW, Many years ago I actually caught someone urinating in a coolant tank. Unbelievable that someone could be so lazy they couldn't walk the length of the shop to the restroom. He was gone a few minutes later.
I use to work in a shop who was using blaser coolant. The coolant actually gave us mild infections around cuts and on skin generaly. Turned out to be that there was not enough coolant in the mixture and it created fungus. Its important to check your coolant mixture levels. A guy at the shop got severely infected because of the fumes had to be hospitalised.
Never had anyone urinate in a sump, but forever lecturing my colleagues on spitting and pouring leftover coffee in the sumps. Both are organic matter and will breed bacteria. Grinding carbide on a machine with synthetic coolant is a mess I had to clean up during my time as an apprentice. Never again will I smell anything like that again.
Our coolant is changed out often which is good for the company considering the tanks are over 500 gallons each...But one time it just smelled terrible so we started cleaning the tank and there was a dead pigeon in the tank...we scooped it out and it burst open and maggots crawled out everywhere 🤢
@@ipadize There's an overflow tank below the main tank which is only covered by a plate that has gaps around the sides...The pigeon must have been on the way out anyway and fell in...it was not pleasant
A guy I worked with told me he had a pigeon in his tank one day. It was only a small tank on a centreless grinder. His mate put it there as a joke. Begs the question why?
When I was apprenticing in the same shop with the toxic boss, practically every machine had bad coolant in it. I cleared out and replaced the coolant in the two TOS manual lathes, a vertical mill (which I worked till the gearbox died), a mostly-well-taken-care-of horizontal boring mill (which took a gallon container to skim off just the oil alone), and a Geminis GE-2000 manual lathe. With the Geminis, the last person who ran it apparently urinated in it a few times and when I used the coolant it was the worst thing I ever smelled, and it came out a swampy green gunk instead of milky white emulsion. It was quite clear to me that the only people who cared for the machines were me (a just-out-of-first-year apprentice at the time), a toolmaker who mentored me better than my manager ever did and worked on the horizontal borer, and the CNC operator. The boss, manager, other workers, they didn't care for the machines' wellbeing or coolant that'd rot your arm off in seconds (exaggeration), to them it wasn't a problem if it worked. Looking back, I should've resigned after the Christmas of 2019.
I resigned after 7 months lol, people are nasty and lazy don't cater to them ever they don't deserve it. They wanted me to clean the 5th machine and was thinking yeah I'm done being a bitch. One of the 2 guys in management would be hungover everyday and be in a mood and I don't drink so I just repelled like a magnet eventually.
I once had to wait until the boss was out for most of the day and changed all thr coolant on my machine without informing him..Didn't care if he found out and I was sacked because it was better than developing dermatitis
Coolant housekeeping is critical and when I worked at Rolls Royce they had daily checks like you do there with refractometers and litmus swabs making sure it was scientifically in spec,
Never had anyone relieving themselves in a tank... but waaay back before we switched coolant, the one vertical mill we had would reek! You could dump a full bottle of pine-sol in it, and be back to vomit-inducing stank within a few days. Been using tech-cool for years now, gets a little "stale" smelling, but nothing like old stuff 🤮
Our shop used to use Blaser coolant, we loved it. But management switched to some cheap coolant that was $800 cheaper a drum. I hate it, my megaturn is nasty inside. (Nanotech 6800)Finally got them to switch, going with Oemeta. Hope it works out.
Oemeta is a good choice. Used Hycut 910 because the Mazak VTC 30 had an Problem with leakoil from the guidings. The special oil emulgates in the coolant. Holding the machine clean the coolant is very stable. Last change two and half year ago. Manufacturing copper, steel, alu and div plastic. Best regards from Germany
I've cleaned out tanks on many machines and got bacteria on my hands so strong it literally ate my fingernails up and gave me a horrible rash !!!!!!!!!! That was in my own dad's shop because my goofball cousin was to lazy to ever clean the tanks out , to the point that 20 gallon + tanks were only holding 3-4 gallons 😡😡😡😡😡😡 When oil gets in them it really speeds up the bacteria process to it seems . The newer machines with the grease way lube instead of oil is a HUGE advantage for that reason alone for the long term . Coolant can get bad fast and truth is far to many shops don't take it seriously .
Worked in a fab shop, yup same scumbags we had used to spit chew spit into the machine coolant and band saw tank and even piss in the corner.. We only had a 6 inch fan on one back window for ventilation with 6 of us back in the fab shop welding all day, I was threatened to be fired for asking for a 3M particle mask for welding as there was not enough ventilation in the shop . I left that place fast..
My brother went to the Bostomatic maintenance school in Milford, MA back in the day. This was a common occurrence back then too. Urine would affect the bronze Procon coolant pumps. Again, careless morons.
We used to have a machining training center in Durham I did several weeks work placement just as I was leaving school there learning about turning. One if the things I can still remember was to always use barrier cream and to wash your hands before going to the loo otherwise you risk getting dermatitis on your gear due to the different oils.
Had some trouble finding barrier cream in the US. There's stuff for treating hands after. It's been a while since I looked though so I should probably look again. Edit: Looks like "gloves in a bottle" is what I'm after.
The coolant my workplace uses starts affecting my skin within minutes. First its a burning sensation at the hair follicle on my hands, then intense itching. I end up with open sores all up and down my arms. I refuse to work without rubber gloves now even if it takes me extra time to put them on and take them off to do my job. The only time the machines are cleaned is when there is enough downtime by either breakdown or no work.
That looks a lot like when I used to run Cimcool in my tool room lathe. It started to look like the cheese on top of a pizza. I switched it out for Trim coolant (probably not that much of an upgrade) but it smells better and lasts so much longer.
I worked at Pepsi Cola bottling plant I don't think a week went by when somebody didn't run into something with a forklift and blessed a half a pallet of Pepsi bottles or a 12-pack of cans would fall and some of them with spew every night we would hose down and push broom and squeegee the whole plant out the back loading dock but there were make sugary wet spots here in there and mice and rats would lick them up and we had these big rat traps all around the place and we had these little baseball bats that were right by the traps so if you found one in there that was alive you could dump it out and knock it on the head but nobody ever checks the traps and sometimes there would be a rotting one in there one of the most disturbing things was that because of the rats strolling living off of licking the sugar off of the floor they grew big sores all over their skin and their hair would fall out it was nasty they looked like a freak of nature
I know that feeling when the coolant pipe is stuck with dirt, I increase the pressure to max and suddenly this shit is all over the place. It takes a lot of effort to clean literally everything. Proper mainitenance is important. I've seen the same thing on some old machines in our shop. It is all mixed with oil from the parallels, coolant and metal chips...
I used to work at a shop that had some wrank smelling coolant and I used to get staph infections. I left there and I have never had another staph infection since!!!
The milling machine i was using in my last shop was in such bad shape it would leak about 1/3ed of the tanks coolant every week. That turned out to be a blessing.
Every machine in my old place had an orange coolant/coffee mix. I just thought it was normal not to clean them out and leave them grim until I got to my new place. Coolant changed at least 1 time a month, white as paper… it really was grim the shit I saw in the bottom of suds tanks at the old place, disgusting🤢🤮
Good afternoon Titan. Back in 1992, I got my hand caught in a bandsaw and amputated 2 1/2 fingers. Back then here in the UK we just used bog standard suds coolant. Not sure if it's our climate but living In the tramp oil was a flesh eating bug called soudomonus, my stumps and fingers got covered in the stuff and it ate the flesh quite badly. We still use the same stuff because it's cheap. Just thought I'd share that with you all. Best wishes,Matt
@@laurentianvmx1692 thanks man, life is good. I can still pick my nose and hold my beer 😂😂 I had both fingers reattached but one went gangrene so it had to come off again but my index finger is still good, well sort of lol. Best wishes,Matt
I have to hand it to our maintainence team. They took coolant health seriously on all machines. They checked PH balance, specific gravity and added a anti microbial chemical. It never smelled. I am not a machinist but as a welder who worked in the bay next to them and worked with their supplied parts I very much appreciated their efforts.
Maybe he comes off that way. But he isn't wrong. Providing people with information to learn from is something that should be held in high regard but isn't.
I have people walk through my shop and tell me how amazed they are that there is no odors, and on top of that i have sumps that are 3 years old, two big tricks: deionized water run through a proper mixer, and daily concentration check. we take delivery of our coolant recycling system today, skimmers don't work when machines run 24/6.
Used to get fungal ear infections constantly just from the coolant in the air. Left the shop, immediately stopped. I'v heard of people 💩 in the tank, because their managers wouldn't let them go to the restroom. There really needs to be a food safe coolant that doesn't have the side effect standard coolants do. Great stuff! Keep it up! 🔥💯
My story: Almost 2 years ago me and my friend had to change the coolant and refill all the tanks of the machines. One HSC machine had a very big tank, we‘re talking about a few hundret liters capacity. So next thing we know after getting rid of the old coolant is, someone had to clean the tank from the inside. There was soggy slimy brown stuff everywhere, almost like rotten chocolatemilk. I was the smallest out of everybody so surprise surprise… i had to climb in the tank with a flashlight and clean everything without any assistance. Fortunately the smell was‘nt to bad (atleast for my nose :P) but the worst part was the thick air in the tank, it was almost like a gas chamber so i had to stick my head out the tank to sip some fresh air. Somehow i was finished pretty quickly and climbed out of the tank. Thankfully my boss decided i could go home wilst my friend had to refil the tank till it was full xD. I still love my job as a Polymechanic regardless of all the things you have to do for a healthy machine! Greetings from Switzerland :)
Shop I worked at about 10 yrs ago. We caught a guy not only dumping coffee and such in the machine. But spitting dip In the machine and peeing in the machine at night.
One thing that can be done easily, is testing the PH of the coolant everyday. The test strips are really cheap, and some coolant can become acidic, or even highly basic. This can cause corrosion on the machine, and the parts. When we would see a coolant tank start to go acidic, we would flush the tanks, and refill the whole system with fresh coolant. Preventative maintenance schedules should always involve coolant monitering.
I never forget when I was a first year apprentice we talked to by a coolant provider, and he said the worst thing to deteriorate soluble oil was lazy old blokes who would urinate in the start tray because he is to lazy to go to the toilet
back when I was at mechanic school we once came back from summer holidays to a machine shop stinking like what I could only describe as concentrated dog poo and fox urine. Turns out one of our CTX's Coolant had gone extremely sour over the 6 Weeks of standstill and lack of coolant maintenance. All the coolant had to be pumped from the coolant reservoir into the waste coolant tank. Fun times.
I had a similar experience with the machine shop course that I was taking here in Canada. Coolant tanks didn't get drained and cleaned like they were supposed to at the end of the last class in late spring/early summer and they sat for a month or better. I remember it looking like chocolate milk, but it sure smelled worse :S. I have worked in the trade ~15 years since this experience and have yet to experience anything quite this bad, likely because I always took care of my machines...especially coolant tanks!
One of the biggest things I hate is dirty coolant! Some people are too old school and think “it’ll be okay”. Weekly coolant testing is what I take pride in.
I love Blaser I worked at a place that had older mazak mills opposing each other. The 2 old guys on them used to spit listerine into the machine 3,4,5 times daily. I was written up for refusing to run the either machine when they were out of the shop or on vac. Nope not without a hazmat suit. NASTY
Dang, glad to know this. I recently left a shop because I was having health issues ever since I started working there. Guys never cleaned the machines, and on top of that they had were old and didn't have air filters on them. I knew it smelled bad, but I didn't know it was dangerous.
I actually really like qualichem 251C, going on 3 years now with it, and works great, cutting mostly aluminum and a little hardened stainless. I was thinking about trying synergy 735 on my new tormach but didn't want to have 2 different cutting fluids in the shop.
Used Qualichem before switching to Synergy and it’s better than most… Synergy is just a different a complete different Beast, especially for someone that wants to see their parts while being machined… and doesn’t want to deal with bacteria.
Our local (since retired) trade school machining program director told me a story about a guy peeing in another guys sump… but it ended with a fist fight (as it should😁) We swapped over to Oemeta coolant about a year and a half ago, and we couldn’t be happier. Our rep sends samples of our machine’s coolant to their lab each month free of charge and then will make any adjustments (outside of concentration) that we need the following week. It has no smell, and performs great. One of the coolest features about the Oemeta products is that they all use the same base. So we also run Oemeta way lube for instance. So it emulsifies into the sump rather than floating as tramp oil. That alone goes a long way toward smell control, since bacteria love to eat the tramp oil… no food. And our skimmer buckets take a really long time to fill up, and the tanks stay in really nice shape. If i had one complaint about it, it would be that when we run a lot of brass, it tends to tint a blue/green color for weeks to follow. It doesn’t stain. I just don’t like it.
I've heard stories of guys peeing in coolant tanks. They had to tell the guy "You realize that comes back out into the machine and you work in it." He drained the tank and cleaned it. I would've fired him.
Had a job a few years back, I started getting a horrible rash after running one machine, none of the other 4 I ran caused issues. I asked my supervisor and got nothing, asked the shop director and still got nothing. They all told me (including HR!) that I "wasn't washing my hands enough". I quit a week later and a month after that they finally tested the coolant. It had a flesh eating bacteria in it and they sent me a half-assed apology letter. I sent them a lawsuit.
Anyone who maintains a wire EDM operation using deionized and filtered water already knows the coolant tank should be constantly aerated by a pressurized ozone generator 24/7. The shop should be ventilated, but normally not a problem due to the coolant fridge unit venting heated air outside. The same ozone water purification cycle is used on un-pressurized ultraviolet fish tank filters. Doesn't work without attention to detail on the tramp oil skimmers and type/amount of waylube.
We finally got permission to change the old coolant that smelt like a dead rat for the first time in a cnc mill since 2004. My coworkers was saying I was being silly about turning on a fan to blow the mist out when they were cleaning all the holes of the mill table. If I didn't cut a fan on the yellow fog would hang in the air for a long time, and give me allergic reactions ( my allergies still mess with me, not as bad as grinding dust and lacquer thinner). Used coolant goes into the automatic band saw, that has caused the chips in the pan to rust,and the coolant turned brown . We use general purpose coolant as mist coolant in Jerry rigged coolant fogers. We still don't have a refractomiter so fresh coolant only smells good for a few weeks. The cnc lathe does not have the same problem because they refill with buckets they mix coolant into before going into the machine, vs, the mill department has water hoses directly into the tank and no coolant concentrate is added. I don't run the cnc's so they do not want me maintaining it for them when I bought a refractomiter myself. People need to learn how to keep up with coolant, and to not use the compressed air for cleaning everything including, varsol, and cutting oil. Dont people understand we breathe that mess after it gets atomize into the air. Hold the tip of the air nozzle 6in or more from what you are cleaning instead of literally touching so liquids don't atomize. Please use ventilation when using grinders and chop saws, that could have its own video.
I pull out clumps of Black slim! I hate our coolant. Last place I worked at switched to hocut 795 and it smelled like fish bait but no bacteria could live in it ,my hands cleared up, and it made all the mazaks look like brand new again! We couldn't believe it! Customers loved the way all 50 mazaks looked like brand new and the shop was super clean,,,,,except for the air. Always had a cloud on the ceiling of mist. Never used blaser but all the guys that use it love it.
Its rly tough to maintain a clean work place, 3shifts nonstop, the right ppl with excellent standards, good team mates, honest and professional, rly hard.
Reading the comments on cleanliness and indifferent attitudes of both owners and employees makes me want to share something I witnessed a few decades ago in the woodworking industry. When visiting a customer's factory in another state, I was disgusted by the filth and sloppy infrastructure of his plant thinking to my self it was a fire waiting to happen. Sure enough it happened and the plant burned down. He had some decent products and good insurance and promptly rebuilt, the kicker was that he got to go to Washington DC and receive an award from the President honoring small businesses that bounced back from adversity.
I visited some people who lived in New Orleans. I asked what was that thing above (not directly above but higher than) their house, and they said it was the river. I said move somewhere else fast! They didn't, and the city flooded a year or two later.
we have a huge but old cnc mill that we rarely use unless doing big surfacing stuff 1- we rarely use it compared to other machines 2-maintenance is rather low priority on this one unfortunately 3-our factory is essentialy right next too the sea so we have funky bacteria/algae in proximity when we use it with coolant on, litteraly the whole factory can get a wiff of it, it kind of smells like the car pool of a ferry, a mixture of engine oil and rotten seaweed
As a former machinist I have been through some varieties of coolants and coolant management solutions. One of these solutions caused severe rashes and blsiters all over my hands, whereas I used to work in another shop where the coolant caused no allergic reactions whatsoever. That shop had all its machines hoked up to a centralized coolant filtration and management system. This leads me to a question here. It is obvious you take great care in your selection of machines (and operators of course) but how come you are not using a central coolant management system for all your machines? In my experience such systems does wonders when it comes to keeping the machines bacteria and fungus free (because the coolant is constantly in motion) and it is also a lot easier to keep the coolant-water ratio constant with such a suystem since it also tops up the coolant as necessary. It's otherwise a really cool shop you have. It was about 20 years from now since I last stood on the shop floor, but I still find these machines interesting.
This is what you have a maintenance department for. They PM the machines on a scheduled basis. Clean out the chips from the coolant tanks,clean the chip conveyor and change the filters on machine and mist collector.
Worked in a screw machine shop for 1/2 a day Lol , the floor of the shop 150ft x 300ft was the coolant/oil tank , you walked on raised grating over the oil that surrounds the cam operated machines , the smell unreal and they made blown glass bulbs too , it was insane , there was 4in of oil over 4in water base coolant under your feet , the place was a time bomb I got out
The shop I work in is dirty like that. Chips all over the floor. None of the machines are vented. So if there is high temp mist, smoke, etc it just fills the building and we breath it in. A coworker of mine let his coolant get dark brown and ran it like that for 2 years. Smelled horrible and like vinegar. I don't see how he could stand it. And to think it was all because he refused to push a button that turned his oil skimmer on. If you don't skim your oil it eventually mixes with the coolant and turns into bacteria heaven.
We had a similar incident years ago at smith int’l. Several guys that came in contact with the same set of machines started getting soars all over their arms. We to changed our coolant. We never found out what caused it, but the issue was resolved with a great coolant.
At the shop I worked at absolutely refused to believe me that it was fungus growing in the violent tanks. He would just tell me to empty too coolant, and refill it, and to not waste my time cleaning it. This was a daily occurrence, I don't know why he thought that nobody else could be right. One day I "wasted" my time cleaning the damn thing. He got incredibly pissed off, and said that if I do it again then I'm going to be fired. The coolant was perfectly fine after that though, it was the same coolant in the machine from the day I did it, to the day I unlimited quit.
Where I work the machine next to me had a terrible smell , I go off work and across the street I see big rats . Next day I checked the coolant tank and there was a big dead rat in it . I've seen shops that are inside old animal farms , the building almost falling down with 0 temperature control in winter it's probably freezing in there , even if I was offered a better pay then what I have I never set foot there again
Hey Titan! Do you work with cast iron? We used to work with GGG40(ASTM A536) and this stuff was so bad!! The graphite and the coolant were mixing up resulting in a very dirty and smelly sludge. We cleaned the machines every week and cleaned the tank yearly but still. Greetings from Switzerland
I worked in a shop that one machine had terrible smelling coolant. I told the owner a couple times about it but he just shined me on. So I dealt with it.
You never worked at unilathe in stoke on trent england, docs flesh was swimming round in the coolant tank for 6 months after he had done the hokey cockey with an 80 mm cutter ( no interlock ) it stunk all through summer, nice
When I started machining , a few months later I got a heavy reaction from coolant. My hands and arms looked liked they'ved been butchered... since then I use different coolant and try to clean the tanks often, but still have some skin rashes from the coolant... I think it is time for Blaser!
I've seen cholesterol looking turds come out the coolant hose, blocked pipes from not maintaining coolant, even a great like "Rocol" can go bad, currently OEST is giving us the best performance, just cause we struggle to get BLASER cheap in South Africa.
I am stuck using a coolant that allows corossion at 4% and overflows the machine from foaming at 8%. Boss hadn't let me install a proper drain port in the coolant because "the coolant we got now is the best and we are never changing it". Guess who is running a darker by day coolant of entry level performance that has a fishy note to it if you run the machine all day.
The boss caught the labourer taking a leak in the sump of my lathe many years ago. Too lazy too go the bog. The boss booted him out, literally. Didn't even give him time to zip up.
From my dad's experience, this used to be really common with salty boomer machinists. All those people are fucked up. I swear I can see a mentally ill boomer and every time he was a machinist lol.
Had a lil girl running a machine 2nd shift on Friday, she was a tobacco chewer/spiter. The inside of the machine was covered on chew spit that rotted and fermented. Boss told me to clean it, told boss to F
Had a temp employee spit chewing tobacco juice into the machine. I went off on him like you couldn't imagine. Made him clean the the machine out and coolant. Called the temp agency & fired him after he got done.
@@DNANDROID 95 gallons of coolant isn't cheap to replace. Plus downtime from a production job, 6hrs @ 90.0hr. All because of a disgusting habit and common sense to spit in a cup or trash can.
Very common tobacco spit gets in the tanks lol
If he spits tobacco juice in the machine he’s too stupid to have a job like that in the first place. Hope you stiffed the agency.
@@DNANDROID clearly the temp lacked brains and will never do something like that again in anyone elses shop. As the guy mentioned, it was paid work
@@fryer05maverick31 i assume you left out the part where he chose to ignore you after you addressed the issue, informing him of his mistakes and had no choice as he was unwilling the correct his mistakes. He probably watched others before him doing it all the time. Cigarette butts in the coolant. I reckon you would think about math operator to do that and that's why it takes you off cuz somebody told you not to do it and you probably don't like being told what to do.
I have no complaints when it comes to cleaning the gear myself.
Finding management that will allow a machine to be taken out out of service for the time needed however.
I had a manager who wouldn't permit tank cleaning because of the time and cost of the coolant change.
He no longer works in my shop after an expensive endmill for titanium failed early in its life. My programming was blamed, and checked. The tool supplier gave me a passing grade and said the coolant quality was to blame for the failure.
Coolant is cheap, tools cost money when they die early.
I have a large flat bed grinder in my cell. It's the money maker atm. But the higher ups keep it in production even though it desperately needs the 800l of hydraulic oil that's sat in the oil stores waiting to be put in.
But the problem is that some managers and owners come around and are like "Why is this tool down? Why is it not being used?" and even after you tell them "We are doing the recommended preventative maintenance!" they go "Don't do it! Takes too long, wastes too much time!"
Then when something breaks down the line, they don't want to hear "Well... I was following the instructions given to me by you. Yes, I knew this was going to happen and I warned you that it was most likely going to happen!"
Learned that from my Great-Uncle, bless his departed soul, who ran into this exact issue back 28+ years ago.
End mills fail all the time regardless
I've literally seen a guy urinating in a machine like 10 years ago, I bet this is way more common than we know..
Titan, I went through the same thing except for the urine. 15 years ago Blaser came in and educated us and never had this problem again. The best coolant I ever used.
I used to run an oilfield machine shop the welders and machinists were always fighting about something. The machinists were complaining about the Johnson Bandsaw coolant reeked bad. well come to find out one of the welders was peeing in the tank on night shift for some payback for something and everytime something was cut on the saw the whole shop smelled God Awful. we had a little ass eatin meetin about that. Shell Dromus B coolant used to go bad pretty fast.
I've seen stuff that looks like black mold growing in coolant, and that can't be healthy to breath. A lot of companies don't give a crap about working conditions. It's sad. I like your shop though, top notch.
As someone who works in a shop that let's machines not be cleaned for several years, you have no idea I'm glad to hear you say that you clean them. Not enough shops clean there machines enough. Both from a machining perspective and a health perspective
u dont need to clean them manually , there are special devices and chemicals for constant cleaning , but most bosses dont want to spend money
@@LordOfChaos.x which?
Wait u can clean them from a health perspective? Never heard of that where I work
@@idkwt2use he means its bad for ur health when you have bacteria in the coolant it can irritate your skin very badly and your body can also develop something like an allergy againt coolant
@@simonhygrell4426 oh no I know. When I started at my workplace I developed some ugly rash almost like wartz on my hands... I always blamed either the solvent or coolant.
Worst story for me, 14 years of no maintenance on 18 machines. Not only was there hydrogen sulfide issues, there was a powdery mildew that formed in the chip layers in the tray. When I started, the “old school” machinists would spit in the machine. Every machine I filled daily was a translucent rust color and would take 20 gallons of a milky swisslube and turn it the same color (almost a 50% fill up).
Boss let me change my machines coolant, several issues were immediately fixed on parts coming from my machine. Became the best quality and efficient operator on the floor. Now I show others the right way, and I have changed out 6 other machines. Saved the company tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars. To boot, my bay is the only clean bay in the whole shop and my parts and talents are premiered to our customers. Owner is talking about putting in a new DMU 50 and guess who is going to be running it??? Yours truly!!!!
Ask the owner to put in a Hermle C22 and you (and the boss) will be even happier!
and then they laugh at you when you ask for a raise.
Start your own business Benjamin trust me you'll be lots happier, your currently your bosses slave and he's taking full advantage of you riding your coat tails and you're getting nothing for it!
Start your own business and DO NOT do what you know the other fools do.
People will want to work with and for you if you provide standards and disciplines of excellence, Titan is one of the best examples to acknowledge and in doing so he has bragging rights that not many can deny💪
that's the most fucked up shit ive ever heard
It's people like you that make coming to work a pleasure I can't stand nasty habits and dirty machines just shows a lack of pride in your work and a lack of respect for your workplace and team
I owned a machine shop for many years. I had 2 skimmers and aquarium aerators on my machines and almost never had coolant problems. Twice a year we dedicated one day to pull the coolant tanks to drain and steam clean them. It's a job that has to be done if you want maximum performance from your coolant.
People will pay tens of thousands to fix a machine to save quarters on coolant lololol. It is so dumb. Thank you for not being a POS lololol.
i have seen a dead rat in a coolant tank when i was working in a company . They never cleaned those tanks. Man that was nasty . These guys are lucky to have a machine shop like that. I wish i could work for titans of cnc and learn the new technology new machines . The great team . Keep it up Titan you are doing a great job man.
Saw a guy dump his watered down coke from lunch in the saw sump. I said, What the frick Stanley. He saw no problem with it at all. Then I had to splain to him how that was a problem, and he was receptive.
I've worked with so many people that gave me crap and made fun of me for always keeping my work area clean. They always had the excuse, "well I've been busy doing work!". They also said this while i was cleaning at the end of the day and they were having beers. Love a clean shop!
I've had people ridicule me for being clean, organized and on top on my equipment. Needless to say NONE of these people are still involved in machining. This was in the eighties so I was way ahead of the 5S curve. Idiots for not having common sense and pride in their trade. If they have no respect I have nothing to do with them.
I just started at a shop 2 weeks ago, got hired to run the CNC Lathe but since I had a tiny bit of experience on Haas's they put me in the milling department. Within two weeks I learned more than I knew about turning in 4 months and now I am setting up and running the 5 Axis UMC 750 and theres a dude whos been there for 6 years who tried giving me shit for sweeping my work area, "How many times you gonna clean today" was what he told me. Its funny because it really seemed like he was just butt hurt that the brand new guy was running parts on the brand new 5 axis instead of him even though he is way more qualified. I feel the management sees my drive and that I am trustworthy so they are putting a lot resources into training me uo quickly. It looks like being the only guy who sweeps his work area payed off.
Dude I get that as a Chef lol. Little do people realize that consistent quick habits actually make you more productive, Clean area, clean mind. It is true. I have converted quite a few slobs over to the clean side bc they realize they actually do less effort in the end not tripping themselves up. Any biz this is true. Every job I have had I have been the anal retentive guy.
I went through that! Complained complained complained…. Company thought they could RECYCLE USED COOLANT!!! I threatened to call osha a number of times then quit cuz my health and well being is more important that a shitty work environment.
Caught an operator spitting loogie when checking the part inside the CNC lathe. Never saw coolant the same
If you don’t schedule maintenance, maintenance will schedule itself. Learned that lesson over my career.
The minimill I run I have a water filtration system filtering out small chips and sediment and one of the coalescers that titan has recommended and haven't had any issues with stench, I have drained the tank on the minimill and scraped out the tank itself as much as I could since it is part of the machine and refilled it with cleaned coolant only once, and the only other thing I do is just keep the tank topped off and works great.
Piss and chewing tobacco spit/pouches were common finds in machines at my old shop. I ALWAYS wore plastic sleeves and gloves every time I operated any of those machines.
I never seen a guy pissing in a machine that people work on. If anyone I worked with did, I am sure it would lead to a real fight and a whole bunch of new rules for the shop..
Piss?
@@leebrady6326 yeah, I'd smack the shit out of someone... I get pissed when i see people spit in machines that I'm working on.
one of my colleagues spitting in his machines till these days, coolant smell rottens never cleans it and no skimmer. i refused to work on his machines when he's off lead to a big fight with boss. i still didn't run his machines.
There was a case in the UK about 40 years ago, where urine in the turbine oil at a power station caused corrosion in a hydraulic control system, leading to an overspeed and a catastrophic unscheduled self disassembly of a 400MW generating set.
0:42 Titan loves machining so much, that he even drinks coolant
Its funny, as a hand-on supervisor, just last night I cleaned out one of our machine reservoirs that was getting to ridiculous levels of stink (I work at a small automotive supplier). It is shocking how little anyone (at my level or above) cares about preventative maintenance. Numbers, numbers, numbers are the only thing anyone wants to talk about.... until we have an audit...
We _always_ kept our coolant clean, and never let oil layers build up in the sumps, it's a huge deal keeping coolant in top condition. We'd completely swap out all the coolant in the shop once every 3 months.
I've got a pretty nasty story. So before I started working at my shop I heard a story of a guy getting caught choking his chicken in a few of the machines. We have some pretty big pallet changing toyodas you can walk into. They ended up using a black light and had to clean out and check all the machines he was running after they fired him.
Sometimes I really hate people.
@@GryphonIndustrial Sometimes people are so hatable lololololol
This urinating in the machines thing was way more common than a lot of owners know lol. My dad was in the biz 50 years and said it used to SOP and an unspoken expectation. Super messed up stuff those old timers used to do or tolerate.
"Don't dump in the sump." - Titan 2024
The guys in the shop love this coolant. So much cleaner. No complaints about smells, rashes, irritation's...nothing.
BTW, Many years ago I actually caught someone urinating in a coolant tank. Unbelievable that someone could be so lazy they couldn't walk the length of the shop to the restroom. He was gone a few minutes later.
I use to work in a shop who was using blaser coolant. The coolant actually gave us mild infections around cuts and on skin generaly. Turned out to be that there was not enough coolant in the mixture and it created fungus. Its important to check your coolant mixture levels. A guy at the shop got severely infected because of the fumes had to be hospitalised.
Cast Iron destroys machines with coolant. You need to clean out regularly. We machined a lot of cast Iron.
I worked at a shop that hired drunks, I always wondered why it smelled like eggs so bad in the coolant until I seen an operator puke in the machine.
God damn!
Never had anyone urinate in a sump, but forever lecturing my colleagues on spitting and pouring leftover coffee in the sumps. Both are organic matter and will breed bacteria. Grinding carbide on a machine with synthetic coolant is a mess I had to clean up during my time as an apprentice. Never again will I smell anything like that again.
Our coolant is changed out often which is good for the company considering the tanks are over 500 gallons each...But one time it just smelled terrible so we started cleaning the tank and there was a dead pigeon in the tank...we scooped it out and it burst open and maggots crawled out everywhere 🤢
ouch oof, how did that pigeon get in there in the first place?
@@ipadize There's an overflow tank below the main tank which is only covered by a plate that has gaps around the sides...The pigeon must have been on the way out anyway and fell in...it was not pleasant
A guy I worked with told me he had a pigeon in his tank one day. It was only a small tank on a centreless grinder. His mate put it there as a joke. Begs the question why?
When I was apprenticing in the same shop with the toxic boss, practically every machine had bad coolant in it. I cleared out and replaced the coolant in the two TOS manual lathes, a vertical mill (which I worked till the gearbox died), a mostly-well-taken-care-of horizontal boring mill (which took a gallon container to skim off just the oil alone), and a Geminis GE-2000 manual lathe. With the Geminis, the last person who ran it apparently urinated in it a few times and when I used the coolant it was the worst thing I ever smelled, and it came out a swampy green gunk instead of milky white emulsion. It was quite clear to me that the only people who cared for the machines were me (a just-out-of-first-year apprentice at the time), a toolmaker who mentored me better than my manager ever did and worked on the horizontal borer, and the CNC operator. The boss, manager, other workers, they didn't care for the machines' wellbeing or coolant that'd rot your arm off in seconds (exaggeration), to them it wasn't a problem if it worked. Looking back, I should've resigned after the Christmas of 2019.
I resigned after 7 months lol, people are nasty and lazy don't cater to them ever they don't deserve it. They wanted me to clean the 5th machine and was thinking yeah I'm done being a bitch. One of the 2 guys in management would be hungover everyday and be in a mood and I don't drink so I just repelled like a magnet eventually.
I'm just jealous your boring mill had integrated coolant. My integrated coolant is me with a squirt bottle.
I once had to wait until the boss was out for most of the day and changed all thr coolant on my machine without informing him..Didn't care if he found out and I was sacked because it was better than developing dermatitis
Coolant housekeeping is critical and when I worked at Rolls Royce they had daily checks like you do there with refractometers and litmus swabs making sure it was scientifically in spec,
Rolls-Royce. There’s a hyphen.
@@sonofsupernova3455 literally no one asked
I’m a metrologist, no one had to.
If someone pissed in my coolant tank I probably wouldn't have a job because that guy would be in the hospital!
Never had anyone relieving themselves in a tank... but waaay back before we switched coolant, the one vertical mill we had would reek! You could dump a full bottle of pine-sol in it, and be back to vomit-inducing stank within a few days. Been using tech-cool for years now, gets a little "stale" smelling, but nothing like old stuff 🤮
Our shop used to use Blaser coolant, we loved it. But management switched to some cheap coolant that was $800 cheaper a drum. I hate it, my megaturn is nasty inside. (Nanotech 6800)Finally got them to switch, going with Oemeta. Hope it works out.
Oemeta is a good choice.
Used Hycut 910 because the Mazak VTC 30 had an Problem with leakoil from the guidings. The special oil emulgates in the coolant.
Holding the machine clean
the coolant is very stable.
Last change two and half year ago. Manufacturing copper, steel, alu and div plastic.
Best regards from Germany
I've cleaned out tanks on many machines and got bacteria on my hands so strong it literally ate my fingernails up and gave me a horrible rash !!!!!!!!!! That was in my own dad's shop because my goofball cousin was to lazy to ever clean the tanks out , to the point that 20 gallon + tanks were only holding 3-4 gallons 😡😡😡😡😡😡 When oil gets in them it really speeds up the bacteria process to it seems . The newer machines with the grease way lube instead of oil is a HUGE advantage for that reason alone for the long term . Coolant can get bad fast and truth is far to many shops don't take it seriously .
Worked in a fab shop, yup same scumbags we had used to spit chew spit into the machine coolant and band saw tank and even piss in the corner.. We only had a 6 inch fan on one back window for ventilation with 6 of us back in the fab shop welding all day, I was threatened to be fired for asking for a 3M particle mask for welding as there was not enough ventilation in the shop . I left that place fast..
Many things I could kind of understand, but just pissing in the corner is something else entirely
A guy was urinating in the tank?! 😂😂😂
Seems to be a common thing, heard that often in my 2 years of apprenticeship 🤣😅
My brother went to the Bostomatic maintenance school in Milford, MA back in the day. This was a common occurrence back then too. Urine would affect the bronze Procon coolant pumps. Again, careless morons.
My old forearm used to stand by the shops mill and spit chew spit in the coolant tank.. Smelled horrible!
We used to have a machining training center in Durham I did several weeks work placement just as I was leaving school there learning about turning. One if the things I can still remember was to always use barrier cream and to wash your hands before going to the loo otherwise you risk getting dermatitis on your gear due to the different oils.
Had some trouble finding barrier cream in the US. There's stuff for treating hands after. It's been a while since I looked though so I should probably look again. Edit: Looks like "gloves in a bottle" is what I'm after.
The coolant my workplace uses starts affecting my skin within minutes. First its a burning sensation at the hair follicle on my hands, then intense itching. I end up with open sores all up and down my arms. I refuse to work without rubber gloves now even if it takes me extra time to put them on and take them off to do my job.
The only time the machines are cleaned is when there is enough downtime by either breakdown or no work.
That looks a lot like when I used to run Cimcool in my tool room lathe. It started to look like the cheese on top of a pizza. I switched it out for Trim coolant (probably not that much of an upgrade) but it smells better and lasts so much longer.
I worked at Pepsi Cola bottling plant I don't think a week went by when somebody didn't run into something with a forklift and blessed a half a pallet of Pepsi bottles or a 12-pack of cans would fall and some of them with spew every night we would hose down and push broom and squeegee the whole plant out the back loading dock but there were make sugary wet spots here in there and mice and rats would lick them up and we had these big rat traps all around the place and we had these little baseball bats that were right by the traps so if you found one in there that was alive you could dump it out and knock it on the head but nobody ever checks the traps and sometimes there would be a rotting one in there one of the most disturbing things was that because of the rats strolling living off of licking the sugar off of the floor they grew big sores all over their skin and their hair would fall out it was nasty they looked like a freak of nature
I had a guy that chewed Tabaco and spit in the machines. I got rid of him quick. I have guys that skim the tanks everyday.
I know that feeling when the coolant pipe is stuck with dirt, I increase the pressure to max and suddenly this shit is all over the place. It takes a lot of effort to clean literally everything. Proper mainitenance is important. I've seen the same thing on some old machines in our shop. It is all mixed with oil from the parallels, coolant and metal chips...
That’s the shop I work at. I started just dumping it when I want. They don’t even skim the coolant tanks.
Zebra or belt type skimmer cost are affordable enough. We couldn't run our small Mazak QT8 without one..
I used to work at a shop that had some wrank smelling coolant and I used to get staph infections. I left there and I have never had another staph infection since!!!
Is there no way to police these shops?
The milling machine i was using in my last shop was in such bad shape it would leak about 1/3ed of the tanks coolant every week. That turned out to be a blessing.
Every machine in my old place had an orange coolant/coffee mix. I just thought it was normal not to clean them out and leave them grim until I got to my new place. Coolant changed at least 1 time a month, white as paper… it really was grim the shit I saw in the bottom of suds tanks at the old place, disgusting🤢🤮
Good afternoon Titan. Back in 1992, I got my hand caught in a bandsaw and amputated 2 1/2 fingers.
Back then here in the UK we just used bog standard suds coolant.
Not sure if it's our climate but living In the tramp oil was a flesh eating bug called soudomonus, my stumps and fingers got covered in the stuff and it ate the flesh quite badly.
We still use the same stuff because it's cheap.
Just thought I'd share that with you all.
Best wishes,Matt
Sorry bro that hurts to read. Hope life is better now.
@@laurentianvmx1692 thanks man, life is good. I can still pick my nose and hold my beer 😂😂 I had both fingers reattached but one went gangrene so it had to come off again but my index finger is still good, well sort of lol.
Best wishes,Matt
Pseudomonas?
@@tookitogo thanks Antonio 😊
I have to hand it to our maintainence team. They took coolant health seriously on all machines. They checked PH balance, specific gravity and added a anti microbial chemical. It never smelled. I am not a machinist but as a welder who worked in the bay next to them and worked with their supplied parts I very much appreciated their efforts.
Is it just me or is every one of this guy's videos about how great he is and how privileged you are to receive his wisdom?
Maybe he comes off that way. But he isn't wrong. Providing people with information to learn from is something that should be held in high regard but isn't.
I hope that you have fired that guy. There is no excuse for that.
I have people walk through my shop and tell me how amazed they are that there is no odors, and on top of that i have sumps that are 3 years old, two big tricks: deionized water run through a proper mixer, and daily concentration check. we take delivery of our coolant recycling system today, skimmers don't work when machines run 24/6.
one thing I learn is everyone all way educated in programming, setting and operating machine for years but have never been educated in coolant
Used to get fungal ear infections constantly just from the coolant in the air. Left the shop, immediately stopped. I'v heard of people 💩 in the tank, because their managers wouldn't let them go to the restroom. There really needs to be a food safe coolant that doesn't have the side effect standard coolants do. Great stuff! Keep it up! 🔥💯
My story: Almost 2 years ago me and my friend had to change the coolant and refill all the tanks of the machines. One HSC machine had a very big tank, we‘re talking about a few hundret liters capacity. So next thing we know after getting rid of the old coolant is, someone had to clean the tank from the inside. There was soggy slimy brown stuff everywhere, almost like rotten chocolatemilk. I was the smallest out of everybody so surprise surprise… i had to climb in the tank with a flashlight and clean everything without any assistance. Fortunately the smell was‘nt to bad (atleast for my nose :P) but the worst part was the thick air in the tank, it was almost like a gas chamber so i had to stick my head out the tank to sip some fresh air. Somehow i was finished pretty quickly and climbed out of the tank. Thankfully my boss decided i could go home wilst my friend had to refil the tank till it was full xD.
I still love my job as a Polymechanic regardless of all the things you have to do for a healthy machine!
Greetings from Switzerland :)
Shop I worked at about 10 yrs ago. We caught a guy not only dumping coffee and such in the machine.
But spitting dip In the machine and peeing in the machine at night.
One thing that can be done easily, is testing the PH of the coolant everyday. The test strips are really cheap, and some coolant can become acidic, or even highly basic. This can cause corrosion on the machine, and the parts. When we would see a coolant tank start to go acidic, we would flush the tanks, and refill the whole system with fresh coolant. Preventative maintenance schedules should always involve coolant monitering.
My old boss used to spit Copenhagen in our machines. He owned the shop too! Used to gross me out so bad.
Found a dead mouse in our school machine cooling tank back in the 80's, properly more mice at the bottom and the tank is probably still there.
I never forget when I was a first year apprentice we talked to by a coolant provider, and he said the worst thing to deteriorate soluble oil was lazy old blokes who would urinate in the start tray because he is to lazy to go to the toilet
back when I was at mechanic school we once came back from summer holidays to a machine shop stinking like what I could only describe as concentrated dog poo and fox urine. Turns out one of our CTX's Coolant had gone extremely sour over the 6 Weeks of standstill and lack of coolant maintenance. All the coolant had to be pumped from the coolant reservoir into the waste coolant tank. Fun times.
I had a similar experience with the machine shop course that I was taking here in Canada. Coolant tanks didn't get drained and cleaned like they were supposed to at the end of the last class in late spring/early summer and they sat for a month or better. I remember it looking like chocolate milk, but it sure smelled worse :S. I have worked in the trade ~15 years since this experience and have yet to experience anything quite this bad, likely because I always took care of my machines...especially coolant tanks!
One of the biggest things I hate is dirty coolant! Some people are too old school and think “it’ll be okay”. Weekly coolant testing is what I take pride in.
I love Blaser
I worked at a place that had older mazak mills opposing each other. The 2 old guys on them used to spit listerine into the machine 3,4,5 times daily. I was written up for refusing to run the either machine when they were out of the shop or on vac. Nope not without a hazmat suit.
NASTY
Dang, glad to know this.
I recently left a shop because I was having health issues ever since I started working there. Guys never cleaned the machines, and on top of that they had were old and didn't have air filters on them. I knew it smelled bad, but I didn't know it was dangerous.
I actually really like qualichem 251C, going on 3 years now with it, and works great, cutting mostly aluminum and a little hardened stainless. I was thinking about trying synergy 735 on my new tormach but didn't want to have 2 different cutting fluids in the shop.
Used Qualichem before switching to Synergy and it’s better than most… Synergy is just a different a complete different Beast, especially for someone that wants to see their parts while being machined… and doesn’t want to deal with bacteria.
@@TITANSofCNC yeah i think when I sell my Tormach 770m to get my first vmc I'll give it a shot!
Dead insects and animals are the most common nastiness I have seen in machines.
Our local (since retired) trade school machining program director told me a story about a guy peeing in another guys sump… but it ended with a fist fight (as it should😁)
We swapped over to Oemeta coolant about a year and a half ago, and we couldn’t be happier. Our rep sends samples of our machine’s coolant to their lab each month free of charge and then will make any adjustments (outside of concentration) that we need the following week. It has no smell, and performs great. One of the coolest features about the Oemeta products is that they all use the same base. So we also run Oemeta way lube for instance. So it emulsifies into the sump rather than floating as tramp oil. That alone goes a long way toward smell control, since bacteria love to eat the tramp oil… no food. And our skimmer buckets take a really long time to fill up, and the tanks stay in really nice shape.
If i had one complaint about it, it would be that when we run a lot of brass, it tends to tint a blue/green color for weeks to follow. It doesn’t stain. I just don’t like it.
I've heard stories of guys peeing in coolant tanks. They had to tell the guy "You realize that comes back out into the machine and you work in it." He drained the tank and cleaned it. I would've fired him.
... where does he think it goes!?!? neverland??
Had a job a few years back, I started getting a horrible rash after running one machine, none of the other 4 I ran caused issues. I asked my supervisor and got nothing, asked the shop director and still got nothing. They all told me (including HR!) that I "wasn't washing my hands enough". I quit a week later and a month after that they finally tested the coolant. It had a flesh eating bacteria in it and they sent me a half-assed apology letter. I sent them a lawsuit.
Anyone who maintains a wire EDM operation using deionized and filtered water already knows the coolant tank should be constantly aerated by a pressurized ozone generator 24/7. The shop should be ventilated, but normally not a problem due to the coolant fridge unit venting heated air outside. The same ozone water purification cycle is used on un-pressurized ultraviolet fish tank filters. Doesn't work without attention to detail on the tramp oil skimmers and type/amount of waylube.
We finally got permission to change the old coolant that smelt like a dead rat for the first time in a cnc mill since 2004. My coworkers was saying I was being silly about turning on a fan to blow the mist out when they were cleaning all the holes of the mill table. If I didn't cut a fan on the yellow fog would hang in the air for a long time, and give me allergic reactions ( my allergies still mess with me, not as bad as grinding dust and lacquer thinner). Used coolant goes into the automatic band saw, that has caused the chips in the pan to rust,and the coolant turned brown . We use general purpose coolant as mist coolant in Jerry rigged coolant fogers. We still don't have a refractomiter so fresh coolant only smells good for a few weeks. The cnc lathe does not have the same problem because they refill with buckets they mix coolant into before going into the machine, vs, the mill department has water hoses directly into the tank and no coolant concentrate is added. I don't run the cnc's so they do not want me maintaining it for them when I bought a refractomiter myself.
People need to learn how to keep up with coolant, and to not use the compressed air for cleaning everything including, varsol, and cutting oil. Dont people understand we breathe that mess after it gets atomize into the air. Hold the tip of the air nozzle 6in or more from what you are cleaning instead of literally touching so liquids don't atomize.
Please use ventilation when using grinders and chop saws, that could have its own video.
I pull out clumps of Black slim! I hate our coolant. Last place I worked at switched to hocut 795 and it smelled like fish bait but no bacteria could live in it ,my hands cleared up, and it made all the mazaks look like brand new again! We couldn't believe it! Customers loved the way all 50 mazaks looked like brand new and the shop was super clean,,,,,except for the air. Always had a cloud on the ceiling of mist. Never used blaser but all the guys that use it love it.
Its rly tough to maintain a clean work place, 3shifts nonstop, the right ppl with excellent standards, good team mates, honest and professional, rly hard.
Reading the comments on cleanliness and indifferent attitudes of both owners and employees makes me want to share something I witnessed a few decades ago in the woodworking industry. When visiting a customer's factory in another state, I was disgusted by the filth and sloppy infrastructure of his plant thinking to my self it was a fire waiting to happen. Sure enough it happened and the plant burned down. He had some decent products and good insurance and promptly rebuilt, the kicker was that he got to go to Washington DC and receive an award from the President honoring small businesses that bounced back from adversity.
I visited some people who lived in New Orleans. I asked what was that thing above (not directly above but higher than) their house, and they said it was the river. I said move somewhere else fast! They didn't, and the city flooded a year or two later.
we have a huge but old cnc mill that we rarely use unless doing big surfacing stuff
1- we rarely use it compared to other machines
2-maintenance is rather low priority on this one unfortunately
3-our factory is essentialy right next too the sea so we have funky bacteria/algae in proximity
when we use it with coolant on, litteraly the whole factory can get a wiff of it, it kind of smells like the car pool of a ferry, a mixture of engine oil and rotten seaweed
As a former machinist I have been through some varieties of coolants and coolant management solutions. One of these solutions caused severe rashes and blsiters all over my hands, whereas I used to work in another shop where the coolant caused no allergic reactions whatsoever. That shop had all its machines hoked up to a centralized coolant filtration and management system.
This leads me to a question here. It is obvious you take great care in your selection of machines (and operators of course) but how come you are not using a central coolant management system for all your machines? In my experience such systems does wonders when it comes to keeping the machines bacteria and fungus free (because the coolant is constantly in motion) and it is also a lot easier to keep the coolant-water ratio constant with such a suystem since it also tops up the coolant as necessary.
It's otherwise a really cool shop you have. It was about 20 years from now since I last stood on the shop floor, but I still find these machines interesting.
This is what you have a maintenance department for. They PM the machines on a scheduled basis. Clean out the chips from the coolant tanks,clean the chip conveyor and change the filters on machine and mist collector.
Worked in a screw machine shop for 1/2 a day Lol , the floor of the shop 150ft x 300ft was the coolant/oil tank , you walked on raised grating over the oil that surrounds the cam operated machines , the smell unreal and they made blown glass bulbs too , it was insane , there was 4in of oil over 4in water base coolant under your feet , the place was a time bomb I got out
Machines like that are really common in machine shops because management doesn't want to stop the machines to clean them out properly
The shop I work in is dirty like that. Chips all over the floor. None of the machines are vented. So if there is high temp mist, smoke, etc it just fills the building and we breath it in. A coworker of mine let his coolant get dark brown and ran it like that for 2 years. Smelled horrible and like vinegar. I don't see how he could stand it. And to think it was all because he refused to push a button that turned his oil skimmer on. If you don't skim your oil it eventually mixes with the coolant and turns into bacteria heaven.
Shit like this is why I never went far in this biz. Cannot stand degenerate lazy shit like that hahahaha.
We had a similar incident years ago at smith int’l. Several guys that came in contact with the same set of machines started getting soars all over their arms. We to changed our coolant. We never found out what caused it, but the issue was resolved with a great coolant.
At the shop I worked at absolutely refused to believe me that it was fungus growing in the violent tanks. He would just tell me to empty too coolant, and refill it, and to not waste my time cleaning it. This was a daily occurrence, I don't know why he thought that nobody else could be right. One day I "wasted" my time cleaning the damn thing. He got incredibly pissed off, and said that if I do it again then I'm going to be fired. The coolant was perfectly fine after that though, it was the same coolant in the machine from the day I did it, to the day I unlimited quit.
Its baffling how many shops simply don't care about their equipment.
The company I currently work for refuses to give me time to clean the coolant tank of my machine. It has not been cleaned in at least 3 years.
O S H A
Where I work the machine next to me had a terrible smell , I go off work and across the street I see big rats . Next day I checked the coolant tank and there was a big dead rat in it . I've seen shops that are inside old animal farms , the building almost falling down with 0 temperature control in winter it's probably freezing in there , even if I was offered a better pay then what I have I never set foot there again
Hey Titan! Do you work with cast iron? We used to work with GGG40(ASTM A536) and this stuff was so bad!! The graphite and the coolant were mixing up resulting in a very dirty and smelly sludge. We cleaned the machines every week and cleaned the tank yearly but still. Greetings from Switzerland
I worked in a shop that one machine had terrible smelling coolant. I told the owner a couple times about it but he just shined me on. So I dealt with it.
You never worked at unilathe in stoke on trent england, docs flesh was swimming round in the coolant tank for 6 months after he had done the hokey cockey with an 80 mm cutter ( no interlock ) it stunk all through summer, nice
When I started machining , a few months later I got a heavy reaction from coolant. My hands and arms looked liked they'ved been butchered... since then I use different coolant and try to clean the tanks often, but still have some skin rashes from the coolant... I think it is time for Blaser!
Haas has a great video on coolant maintenance.
Can't believe you don't have a Freddy vac yet . I would have thought a company like yours would want the best shop floor vax in the world !
I've seen cholesterol looking turds come out the coolant hose, blocked pipes from not maintaining coolant, even a great like "Rocol" can go bad, currently OEST is giving us the best performance, just cause we struggle to get BLASER cheap in South Africa.
A pond filter costs like $90 and will keep coolant clean for years if you maintain them. I don't get it
I am stuck using a coolant that allows corossion at 4% and overflows the machine from foaming at 8%. Boss hadn't let me install a proper drain port in the coolant because "the coolant we got now is the best and we are never changing it". Guess who is running a darker by day coolant of entry level performance that has a fishy note to it if you run the machine all day.
The boss caught the labourer taking a leak in the sump of my lathe many years ago. Too lazy too go the bog.
The boss booted him out, literally.
Didn't even give him time to zip up.
From my dad's experience, this used to be really common with salty boomer machinists. All those people are fucked up. I swear I can see a mentally ill boomer and every time he was a machinist lol.
How do you dump this coolant ?
Looks like need to add coolant DNA analysis in addition to checking it with a refractometer.
In WWII in the manufacturing shops they added melaleuca oil and infections were cut in half.
Moral of the story don’t contaminate the coolant of a cnc machine whether it’s pee, cigarette butts, or even a bevy.
Had a lil girl running a machine 2nd shift on Friday, she was a tobacco chewer/spiter. The inside of the machine was covered on chew spit that rotted and fermented. Boss told me to clean it, told boss to F
Nepotism is an irritating force.