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Thread: Cleaning clogged cutting tools.

  1. #1
    Supporting Member tonyfoale's Avatar
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    Lightbulb Cleaning clogged cutting tools.

    This is a tip that should be of interest to many home and professional machinists, at least those who machine aluminium alloys.
    Most home shops do not use flood cooling, instead machining is done dry, brush dabbing, drip feed or water based misting. Maybe just a dry air blast. It is not uncommon, even on CNC machines with flood coolant, for aluminium to build up on milling cutters and other cutting tools, that increases heat production and the situation deteriorates very quickly, with the build up accelerating rapidly. At worst this results in broken tools and at best you end up with a tool clogged up with aluminium which in many cases can be very hard to clean off by mechanical means. This tip shows a very easy way to remove such build ups completely.

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-dsc_5276.jpg Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-dsc_5278.jpg Click for full size.

    It is as simple as mixing some Caustic Soda NaOH granules in water. I do not know if there is an optimum concentration but I usually mix it until the solution feels quite soupy. I think that it is just a question of; "The higher the concentration the quicker it works". Then just drop your clogged tools into the solution. If I do this last thing at night then the tools are as clean as a whistle by morning. This works on both HSS and carbide equally well. If you leave the tools in too long they will come out with a light grey coating but this just Aluminium out of the solution and wipes off easily. To extract the cutters from the solution I use a magnet on a stick wrapped in a plastic bag and wash it all down straight afterwards.

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-dsc_5668.jpg Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-dsc_5709.jpg


    WARNINGS
    Add the caustic soda granules to the water slowly. Do not add water to the granules as heat is produced in the mixing and may cause almost instant boiling with explosive like force. It is a good idea to put your jar in a bucket of cold water to help keep it cool and contain the solution should the jar break. I do this in my workshop sink. I always add the NaOH slowly and monitor the temperature rise. Once the solution has cooled it can be handled without problems, but remember that is corrosive so wear gloves and eye protection, wipe any spills with water.

    The second warning is from my own experience. Unless you know more about plastic/caustic soda compatibility than I do then do not use a plastic jar. I did that once and after use I simply put the lid on and stored it for any future use. Some months later when I went back to it all I had was a corroded jar as you can see in the photos below. I do not know what type of plastic the jar was made from. I have never had this problem with glass jars. Glass coffee jars seem ideal. Pyrex would probably be an additional safety factor because of its temperature change tolerance.

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-causticbottle02.jpg Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-causticbottle01.jpg

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    albertq (Apr 4, 2024), Canyonman44 (Apr 8, 2024), Christophe Mineau (Apr 4, 2024), ductape (Mar 7, 2024), Jon (Apr 3, 2024), nova_robotics (Mar 8, 2024), rlm98253 (Mar 8, 2024), uv8452 (Apr 4, 2024)

  3. #2
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    Very useful idea. Another thing to add is that caustic soda in this concentration will cause a pretty bad chemical burn to one's skin and eyes. I'm sure you are aware of this, but some may not be.

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  5. #3
    Supporting Member tonyfoale's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ductape View Post
    Very useful idea. Another thing to add is that caustic soda in this concentration will cause a pretty bad chemical burn to one's skin and eyes. I'm sure you are aware of this, but some may not be.
    Excellent point, thanks, but I did put this in the text ".... remember that is corrosive so wear gloves and eye protection, wipe any spills with water."

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    Supporting Member mklotz's Avatar
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    The procedure for bases is the same as that for acids. The mnemonic goes like this...

    Add acid/base to water
    Like a fellow oughter

    Stupid, I know, but stupid mnemonics tend to stick in the brain better than grammatically correct ones.
    ---
    Regards, Marv

    Experience is always far worse than pessimism

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    Quote Originally Posted by mklotz View Post
    The procedure for bases is the same as that for acids. The mnemonic goes like this...

    Add acid/base to water
    Like a fellow oughter

    Stupid, I know, but stupid mnemonics tend to stick in the brain better than grammatically correct ones.
    Marv,

    I had not heard that one before.
    These aide-memoire are no use to me. I have always thought that I might as well learn the real thing directly than take a longer route. I know that I am probably in the minority with this. I know very little about anything but I understand a lot. For example using this case of which to add to the other, I would not remember the order but I understand that by adding the water to the NaOH there would initially be little heat capacity in the mixture to absorb the heat produced, whereas adding the NaOH to the water gives you the whole of the water to be used as a heat sink. So I would work out the order each time that it was in question.

    For me, remembering is difficult, mnemonics more so, but understanding from first principles is easy.

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    Supporting Member mklotz's Avatar
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    Working things out from first principles is certainly preferred but what about the folks on the left side of the curve?

    According to a report released in 2014 by the National Science Foundation, 26% of Americans surveyed believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. Morris Berman quotes a 2006 survey that show currently some 20% of the U.S. population believe that the Sun goes around the Earth (geocentricism) rather than the Earth goes around the Sun (heliocentricism), while a further 9% claimed not to know. Polls conducted by Gallup in the 1990s found that 16% of Germans, 18% of Americans and 19% of Britons hold that the Sun revolves around the Earth. A study conducted in 2005 by Jon D. Miller of Northwestern University, an expert in the public understanding of science and technology, found that about 20%, or one in five, of American adults believe that the Sun orbits the Earth. According to 2011 VTSIOM poll, 32% of Russians believe that the Sun orbits the Earth.

    For them mnemonics are not just convenient, they're essential.

    Then there's the problem of remembering stuff for which there is no applicable scientific theory. For example, the epochs of the the Cenozoic era...

    Paleocene, Eocene, Oligocene, Miocene, Pliocene, Pleistocene, Holocene (or Recent):

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    I enjoy constructing mnemonics for these "can't be derived from first principles" subjects. My best effort is my mnemonic for the countries of Central America...

    Great Big HEN CRaP = Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama.
    ---
    Regards, Marv

    Experience is always far worse than pessimism

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  12. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by mklotz View Post
    Working things out from first principles is certainly preferred but what about the folks on the left side of the curve?
    I did mention that I thought that I was in the minority and I know that many people find mnemonics to be useful.

    Quote Originally Posted by mklotz View Post
    According to a report released in 2014 by the National Science Foundation, 26% of Americans surveyed believe that the sun revolves around the Earth. ............. According to 2011 VTSIOM poll, 32% of Russians believe that the Sun orbits the Earth.
    Those are incredible statistics. I wonder about the percentage who think that the earth is flat and that man has not been to the moon. Is this due to a lack of education or a determined effort to avoid any learning? The acts of and the results of learning have been always one of life's greatest pleasures for me and I cannot understand those who have no desire to learn. The worrying thing is that they are also voters.

    Quote Originally Posted by mklotz View Post
    Then there's the problem of remembering stuff for which there is no applicable scientific theory. For example, the epochs of the the Cenozoic era...
    That can be a problem for me which has got a lot worse as I have aged, even though that duration is an almost infinitesimal fraction of this era. Mnemonics generally are no help to me in such matters.

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    The 2021 POLES study...

    https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/c...public-beliefs

    addressed both of your questions as well as several others. It's worth speed reading the whole thing but I copied two of the diagrams that provide a summary...

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-hamilton-cc-views_figures_1.png

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-hamilton-cc-views_figures_2.png

    Basically, 10% believe the earth is flat and 12% believe the moon landing was faked. The population of the USA is about 330 million so that's 33 million Usonians who think the earth is flat.

    Interestingly, another study...

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorn...h=77622e447ec6

    indicates that most flat earthers are religious...

    Cleaning clogged cutting tools.-religion-flat-earth-1200x1187.jpg
    ---
    Regards, Marv

    Experience is always far worse than pessimism

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    Marv,

    Amazing statistics. Although from the US I guess that very similar results would be the case at least over that part of the world that we call developed. I do not find the connection between religion and flatearthers to be surprising.

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    Quote Originally Posted by mklotz View Post
    Basically, 10% believe the earth is flat and 12% believe the moon landing was faked. The population of the USA is about 330 million so that's 33 million Usonians who think the earth is flat.

    Interestingly, another study...

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevorn...h=77622e447ec6

    indicates that most flat earthers are religious...
    A classic, and she places herself into a third cohort: people who never thought about whether the earth is flat or not. This is the #1 daytime talk show in America.




    The woman questioning her position is herself a moon landing conspiracist:


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