Blaser Swisslube demonstrates coolant benefits via in-house Technology Centre

"To achieve this, Blaser Swisslube scrutinises all aspects of the machining process, many of which are often taken for granted," explains to Max Zuber, industrial partnerships, Blaser Swisslube. "For cutting tool manufacturers, it is simply impossible to provide cutting data recommendations for every metalworking fluid, so there will always be an opportunity for Blaser to work closely with our partners and customers to be able to investigate specific applications and to develop the optimum combination of metalworking fluid and cutting data to optimise the machining strategy in a holistic manner." The influence of metalworking fluids on the machining process is often greatly underestimated, or not taken into account at all, says Blaser Swisslube, and the cycle time reductions and product quality improvements generated by good application of metalworking fluid are significant. For example, during tests at Blaser Swisslube's Technology Centre on the drilling of Inconel 718, it was found that it was possible to increase the cutting tool manufacturer's recommended cutting speed of vc 30 m/min to an impressive vc 75m/min, by using the correct Blaser metalworking fluid. As a result, overall machining cycle time was reduced by more than 50%. Initially, the customer was drilling the part using a solid carbide 5 mm diameter drill at 3x depth, with through-tool coolant on a vertical machining centre. The recommended cutting data for this drill on Inconell 718 was 30 m/min at a federate of 0.06 mm/rev. Following the evaluation by the technicians at Blasers Technology Centre the surface speed was increased to 75 m/min, with the feedrate remaining the same. The result was a reduction in drilling time from eight seconds to 3.2 seconds.