What we leave behind
Peter A. Oglevie | TLT Shop Floor June 2011
Cost factors alone shouldn’t determine the use of eco-friendly lubricants.
What kind of home will we leave our children?
www.canstockphoto.com
As soon as I bought my home, otherwise known as the 110-Year-Old Money Pit, it developed a water-in-the-basement problem that involved removing the existing sidewalks, adding fill and redirecting water drainage. Not my idea of fun, but I did the work because I did not want to leave the problem for my kids to inherit.
Just as my house had water in the basement, many machines have coolant sumps. Both are problems. So in keeping with this month’s cover story, let’s ask how we can help manufacturing facilities use more biodegradable lubricants.
The first question to ask when implementing a new lubricant is—can it make the part? If not, it
may be of no use. I say may because the lubricant’s failure could be due to how it’s used, not its ability.
The first biodegradable lubricant I used on shop floors was an alcohol-based product that needed special application equipment. This product was supposed to replace a recirculating coolant with a once-through, biodegradable lubricant to eliminate the sump.
During my first experience with this product, I used too much lubricant and air pressure, resulting in an objectionable fog in the plant that ended the test. After that experience, I worked with the system to get the proper air pressure and lubricant application. The product succeeded on the next test and many others and was particularly effective on metal-removal and sawing operations. Wherever it worked, we eliminated the sump.
The next biodegradable product I used was a soap-based, roll-forming fluid. Once again we had to look at application equipment. We installed a drip system to replace the old flood system and attached drippers at critical roll stands to apply the lubricant. The test succeeded, and the customer used the fluid in production. We achieved the customer’s goal of eliminating the sump and introduced a biodegradable product as a bonus. How we approached its application enabled us to get the lubricant out of the basement, so to speak.
In both cases we replaced a non-biodegradable product with a biodegradable one. Both cases resulted in cost savings. So why did I make eliminating the sump my primary goal in both cases?
If we contaminate a biodegradable product with machine lubricants, other process lubricants or chemicals, is it still biodegradable? The likely answer is no. Therefore, either you eliminate the contamination or find another means of lubricating the part. In the two cases above, the answer was application techniques when needed to avoid contamination.
For more severe operations, we may have to look at biodegradable, biologically resistant MWFs and biodegradable machine lubricants such as hydraulic oil, way oil and spindle oils to achieve biodegradable lubrication. That is a lot of change and on most shop floors not realistic without outside regulatory pressure.
Regulations work by increasing the cost of doing business the old way, thus encouraging businesses to become more cost efficient by doing things the new way. But cost should not be the driving force behind our use of biodegradable products. We should use eco-friendly lubricants because it is the right thing to do.
We are temporary caretakers of the Earth. Like a basement that’s either leaking or dry, our children will inherit it.
Pete Oglevie is president of International Production Technologies in Port Washington, Wis. You can reach him at poglevie@wi.rr.com.