Skimming coolant costs

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END USER: Tank Component Industries, (417) 831-5100, www.tankcomponents.com. CHALLENGE: Remove tramp oil that’s contaminating coolant. SOLUTION: Portable oil skimmer that extends coolant life and minimizes the need to clean machines. SOLUTION PROVIDER: Abanaki Corp., (800) 358-SKIM, www.abanaki.com.

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Tank Components Industries, Springfield, Mo., produces cylinders, heads, fittings and other parts for manufacturers of tanks and vessels. TCI machines the parts from stainless steel and nickel-based alloys in a variety of sizes; tank head diameters range from 9 ” to 118 “, and workpiece material thicknesses vary from 12-gauge to ½ “-thick plate.

TCI’s machine tools include a large You Ji vertical lathe, a Mazak horizontal lathe, three Mazak turning centers and two HE&M automatic saws. Until recently, all the shop’s machines shared the same problem: accumulated tramp oil from the machine ways caused coolant to smell like rotten eggs.

According to Bryan Perry, maintenance supervisor, the tramp oil floated on the surface of the coolant and formed an air barrier “like moss on a pond.” That enabled anaerobic bacteria to multiply in the coolant, often causing it to spoil within a week.

Perry minimized the smell by regularly draining the coolant from the machines and cycling cleaner through them. “To clean a small machine takes about 5 hours,” he said. “We have one machine that holds 130 gallons of coolant. That machine takes 2 days to clean. I have to stand there with a hose while the cleaner cycles to keep the sludge from collecting at the bottom.” Cleaning all the shop’s machines, he estimated, consumed more than 40 hours. Added to the time and labor cost of cleaning was the expense of replacing the coolant.

Courtesy of Bryan Perry/TCI