Recommendations on Coolant for Wet / Drenched / Never DRY Milling

[A2WILLDO]

I'm trying to do some research on what milling coolant would work best on Titanium, Chrome Cobalt, LiSi blocks, etc. I wet mill everything; mostly Zirc with high quality h2o, but also everything else that needs coolant. I go back and forth on a 5x500, so I need something that works really well but also cleans easily to get back to Zirc.

 

[JKraver]

I'm trying to do some research on what milling coolant would work best on Titanium, Chrome Cobalt, LiSi blocks, etc. I wet mill everything; mostly Zirc with high quality h2o, but also everything else that needs coolant. I go back and forth on a 5x500, so I need something that works really well but also cleans easily to get back to Zirc.

the 5X500 comes with its own coolant you add it to the water.

 

[A2WILLDO]

the 5X500 comes with its own coolant you add it to the water.

That's what I have been using, but I'm out and they said the price of it made a big jump because everything else was doing it.... And they realized they had been selling it for same amount that they were having to pay to ship it from S Korea.

 

[zero_zero]

I'm trying to do some research on what milling coolant would work best on Titanium, Chrome Cobalt, LiSi blocks, etc. I wet mill everything; mostly Zirc with high quality h2o, but also everything else that needs coolant. I go back and forth on a 5x500, so I need something that works really well but also cleans easily to get back to Zirc.

Asked my trusty A.I., here's what I got...

 

[Car 54]

Glycerin and distilled water? A guy I know used to install Cerec chairside and has about 3 MC XL mills. He bought the glycerin in 5 gallon containers and mixes it. Not sure the ratio, but is was mainly just for milling blue block and zirconia blocks. So I'm not sure how helpful this is.

 

[A2WILLDO]

Anything is helpful. I know the stuff i've been using has glycerin in it by the smell, other than that the label is in Korean so not much info there. Really my biggest concern is how easy it will rinse out of the machine and not contaminate my zirconia when I switch back to water.

 

[A2WILLDO]

Asked my trusty A.I., here's what I got...

Good info! Even though I had to have google pronounce some the words in there. lol

 

[doug]

How about pony-up for the proper fluid for your mill. What else are you cutting corners on? Yeah, I'm in a mood!

 

[CatamountRob]

How about pony-up for the proper fluid for your mill. What else are you cutting corners on? Yeah, I'm in a mood!

Does “proper fluid” only come from the manufacturer of the mill? Maybe it’s more material specific than mill specific?

 

[JKraver]

How often do you need to change your coolant? Couldn't you just run it through a fine seive?

 

[A2WILLDO]

How about pony-up for the proper fluid for your mill. What else are you cutting corners on? Yeah, I'm in a mood!

Hey now, the rest of us can't make a living ponying-out non-precious PFM's. And the only thing that's proper about fluid is what is inside the container, not whos label and price tag was stuck on the outside. Any manufacturer likes to say that you have to use this stuff we sell, but someone else is more than likely making it in a far away land. And thanks to the free market its also more than likely "not" the best thing that can be used.

This also happens to be the opposite situation, where the the manufacturer told me I'd be better off getting some through a bigger dental supplier.... and we all know how much help some of those sales reps can be.

 

[A2WILLDO]

How often do you need to change your coolant? Couldn't you just run it through a fine seive?

Not that often, unless your like me and forget to move the drain plug from the coolant to the water, 3 times now and a +1 by Arum

 

[Car 54]

Hey now, the rest of us can't make a living ponying-out non-precious PFM's. And the only thing that's proper about fluid is what is inside the container, not whos label and price tag was stuck on the outside. Any manufacturer likes to say that you have to use this stuff we sell, but someone else is more than likely making it in a far away land. And thanks to the free market its also more than likely "not" the best thing that can be used.

This also happens to be the opposite situation, where the the manufacturer told me I'd be better off getting some through a bigger dental supplier.... and we all know how much help some of those sales reps can be.

I think (oh,oh) during the original days of Ceramco porcelain, they told the labs that they could only use their metal or the porcelain may fall off. It turned out you could fire that stuff to a door knob without any worries. Sometimes saber-rattling is a favorite of companies, maybe rightly so, and sometimes maybe not.

 

[doug]

I remember being told that you cannot re-wet the porcelain in the dish the next day as some of the properties had been affected.

 

[tuyere]

Don't try to home-brew your own coolant from scratch, that's setting yourself up for disappointment. There are other ways to save money here while still getting quality mill coolant, though. Cutting fluids/coolants from conventional CNC machining are available for far, far cheaper than their dental equivalents, but (for the most part) machining is machining. You can do some investigatory work and compare the MSDS sheets for the manufacturer-recommended dental mill coolant and from an affordable general-purpose coolant from a machinist's supply place, you'll probably find they're mostly the same stuff, even if they don't tell you the exact proportions.
Caveat: I don't know if the ceramic n other oddball materials dentists work with have some special cutting fluid requirements, but metal milling is going to be more or less the same across industries, so I'd expect broad cross-compatibility there. Just do your homework before going and putting non-OEM coolants through your mill!

 

[JKraver]

Don't try to home-brew your own coolant from scratch, that's setting yourself up for disappointment. There are other ways to save money here while still getting quality mill coolant, though. Cutting fluids/coolants from conventional CNC machining are available for far, far cheaper than their dental equivalents, but (for the most part) machining is machining. You can do some investigatory work and compare the MSDS sheets for the manufacturer-recommended dental mill coolant and from an affordable general-purpose coolant from a machinist's supply place, you'll probably find they're mostly the same stuff, even if they don't tell you the exact proportions.
Caveat: I don't know if the ceramic n other oddball materials dentists work with have some special cutting fluid requirements, but metal milling is going to be more or less the same across industries, so I'd expect broad cross-compatibility there. Just do your homework before going and putting non-OEM coolants through your mill!

Pure guess knowing how the rest of this dental field works, its the same stuff marked 5x up in a smaller bottle.