Sump life crisis
A change of brand in a Gardner Group machine shop increased coolant life from nine weeks to over six months, and improved tool life by 50 per cent.
Coolant in Gardner Group’s Basildon machine shop was lasting only about eight or nine weeks, and by then it was producing bad odours. A lot of time was being spent emptying, flushing and cleaning machines; and even when the supplier treated the coolant with chemicals it would still only last ten weeks. Castrol was asked to suggest an alternative cutting fluid, and recommended Hysol XF, specially formulated for its global aerospace manufacturing customers. ‘When Castrol promised a longer sump life from its Hysol XF, we agreed to run a trial in the worst of the three machines and in a new one we had just acquired’ recalls general manager Steve Elisha.
‘We also told them that if they could extend sump life to at least six months, we would change the fluid in all the machines.’
With minimal disruption, the machines were drained and cleaned, and Castrol engineers took samples and ran environmental checks before re-filling them with Hysol XF.
Elisha says Hysol XF easily passed the six month trial and now all machines at the Basildon site are running it: ‘Since then we have not needed to drain and clean a single machine, or change the coolant in a single sump, and that includes the two original trial machines that were filled more than two years ago.’ As an unexpected bonus, tool life has increased by 50 per cent on the mix of metals machined, which includes mainly aluminium with some titanium and steel.
Castrol
