Old habit of using coolant through the spindle finally bit me hard
For like 8 years I always ran coolant through the spindle on my Haas VF-2. It felt right, you know, keeping everything wet and cool. Then last month I had a job with a super tight tolerance on a 316 stainless part. The finish was all over the place, chatter marks everywhere. After 3 scrapped parts and about 4 hours of messing with feeds and speeds, a old timer walked by and said 'why you not using that external nozzle setup?' I switched to a flood nozzle aimed right at the cutting zone and it was like a new machine. Finish came out perfect, tool life doubled. Now I only run coolant through the spindle for basic stuff, never for precision work. Has anyone else had that moment where a simple change like that fixed everything?