Tag: coolant blow off

Cold Guns vs. Coolant: Choosing the Right Cooling Solution for Your Machining Application

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

In machining environments, temperature control isn’t optional—it’s essential. Excess heat reduces tool life, warps materials, slows production, and increases scrap rates. Traditionally, shops have relied on liquid coolant systems to manage these challenges. But as processes evolve and industries push for cleaner, safer, and more efficient operations, EXAIR Cold Guns have become a compelling alternative.

So how do Cold Guns stack up against traditional coolant? Let’s break it down.

What Makes an EXAIR Cold Gun Different?

An EXAIR Cold Gun uses a vortex tube to convert compressed air into a focused stream of cold air. There are no moving parts, no chemicals, and no maintenance-heavy equipment like pumps or filters. Once installed, it simply delivers reliable cooling—often dropping air temperatures as low as 20°F—to keep tools and work pieces from overheating.

The appeal is simplicity: clean, dry cooling without the mess that comes with managing coolant.

Cooling Performance: Cold Air vs. Liquid Coolant

Liquid coolant still holds an advantage in applications that rely heavily on lubrication. Operations like deep pocket milling, tapping, or cutting difficult metals benefit from the coolant’s ability to both cool and lubricate the cut.

Cold Guns excel where pure cooling is the priority. For grinding, engraving, routing, plastics machining, and many dry-cutting processes, the Cold Gun delivers consistent, targeted cooling that improves tool life and part finish without introducing moisture or chemical residue. For many shops, that alone makes it a better fit—especially when contamination is a concern.

Cleanliness, Maintenance, and the Work Environment

Coolant brings with it a certain level of maintenance. Tanks have to be cleaned, concentration levels must be monitored, and filters, pumps, and lines require regular attention. On top of that, coolant mist can create slippery floors and lingering odors and can irritate skin or eyes.

A Cold Gun eliminates these issues entirely. The cooling air is clean, dry, and chemical-free. There’s no mist to manage, nothing to wipe down, and no system to maintain. For applications involving electronics, wood, plastics, food-grade parts, or any material sensitive to contamination, this alone often decides the debate.

Cost of Ownership and Long-Term Value

Coolant systems can become expensive over time—not necessarily because of the initial installation, but because of everything required to keep them running. Disposal costs, replacement fluid, lost production during cleaning, and equipment upkeep all add up.

Cold Guns, by comparison, have almost no ongoing costs. They simply run on compressed air. With no moving parts to wear out and virtually no maintenance, they offer a predictable and low-cost long-term solution.

Every machining process is different, and choosing between a cold gun and coolant often comes down to the details of your setup. If you’d like help evaluating your application, reach out anytime.

Jordan Shouse, CCASS

Application Engineer / Sales Operations Engineer

Send me an email
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Cold Gun Aircoolant Systems™ Versus Messy Coolant

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

In any machining operation, tool wear is unavoidable.  Cutting tools heat up due to friction, and this heat contributes to premature tool wear.  As tooling wears, poor tolerances and dimensional inaccuracy are common.  Additionally, as the cutting edge dulls, increased cutting force is required, which further increases the amount of heat generated. 

Coolants are used to reduce friction and help mitigate some of the wear by reducing heat, but then you’re left with a mess on the part and in the machine itself.   The fine mist will create a fog which will stick to the wall and personnel.  Also, with the dirty parts, cleaning will take additional manpower and time.  What if I were to tell you that there’s a way to safely, effectively, and easily perform machining, grinding, and cutting operations without coolant?  I would like to introduce you to EXAIR’s Cold Gun Aircoolant System™. 

The Cold Gun utilizes the vortex principle to produce a cold air stream that will provide chip evacuation and cooling at the cutting tool and material. The vortex phenomenon will drop the incoming compressed air temperature by 50°F (28oC).  So, if you supply compressed air at 70oF (21oC), it will blow cold air at a temperature of 20oF (-7oC).  This means that the removal of chips by using cold air will help reduce the heat buildup within both the cutting tool and the material, which can help prevent thermal creep. Keeping the cutting tool and the material cooler reduces the amount of wear on the tooling and or coating of the tool and has been found to reduce tool wear by over 21%.

The Cold Gun is an ideal alternative to messy and expensive coolant mist systems. It eliminates the cost of purchase and disposal of cutting fluids as well as worker related health problems from breathing airborne coolant or slipping on wet floors. Replacing a coolant-based system also eliminates the need for secondary cleaning operations after milling or drilling. 

The Cold Gun is a great system for machining a wide range of materials like plastics and MDF, or for grinding materials that may become contaminated when using traditional coolants or oils. The clean, cold air from the outlet of the Cold Gun keeps the part cool, clean, and dry.  

If you have an application that you believe would be well-served from the cold airflow generated by an EXAIR Cold Gun, an Application Engineer will be happy to assist you.  We offer a Cold Gun and a High Power Cold Gun which reduces heat even faster.  Get one on order today and take advantage of our limited time promotion and receive a FREE Dual Point Hose Kit upgrade for qualified online purchases. 

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Removing Coolant From Cold Rolling Operations

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

An overseas company had a cold rolling process where they would make metal sheets of different thicknesses and widths.  They were having issues with their machine removing the excess coolant from the surface that was used in the process.  Like with too many applications, they made their own home-made air knives.  They found that they had reduced production rates, increased quality failures, and amplified noise levels.  They contacted EXAIR to help resolve these issues.    

To go into the details of the application, the cold rolling process uses work rolls to “squeeze” the metal to a thinner gauge.  This squeezing creates heat up to 350oF (177oC).  So, before each work roll, they would spray a coolant to help remove the heat.  The amount of coolant is very important to get the proper cooling and metal gauge.  After the work rolls, the coolant has to be removed before the next work roll operation.  Their system was designed for 3,300 ft/min (1000 m/min), but they could only run it at half the speed as they could not remove enough coolant from the surface.  For each work roll, they used three homemade compressed air knives that were made from 54” (1372mm) pipes with drilled holes.  They laid one on top and one on bottom just after the work rolls.  After the trial, they had to add another one on top to try and remove the remaining coolant that was missed by the first one.  Each home-made knife used 440 SCFM (744 M3/hr) of compressed air at 100 PSIG (6.9 bar) during the cold rolling operation.

Super Air Knife

With similar solutions, EXAIR has a great product for non-contact wiping for flat surfaces, the Super Air Knives.  They use compressed air to generate a force at varying degrees.  With the engineered design, we are able to add free ambient air at a rate of 40:1.  For every one part of compressed air, we can entrain 40 parts of ambient air.  By adding this mass to the airstream, we can generate a hard-hitting force.  Generally, with a drilled pipe, they have an entrainment near 4 to 5:1 which requires more compressed air to get that same force.  Also, with the Super Air Knives, we can generate a laminar flow to give an even force across the entire length. 

For this application, I was worried about the setup of their home-made air knives.  With the position of being straight across, the coolant liquid could build up to a heavier amount in front of the knives, which could allow for some of the coolant to bypass.  This would be the reason for the second drilled pipe on top.  The bottom unit worked fine as gravity was helping to remove the coolant from the surface.  But they were using a lot of compressed air with high noise levels.  I was able to help them to create a more effective blow-off design and to save a lot of compressed air. 

Chevron Style

In my discussion, I mentioned that with high-speed operations, the setup is important for great non-contact wiping.  For this customer, I recommend the Chevron style which mounts two Super Air Knives as an inverted “V”.  Now we can cut the amount of coolant in half.  Half of the sheet means half of the weight of coolant.  For the top, I recommend two pieces, model 110036 36” (914mm) Aluminum Super Air Knife, and a single piece, model 110054 54” (1,372mm) Aluminum Super Air Knife, for the bottom.  We were able to solve their issues with their cold rolling process. 

As they started their operation, they were able to increase the production rates, and removed the need for the extra air knife.  With the Super Air Knives, we were able to save them 877 SCFM (1,490 M3/hr) of compressed air at 100 PSIG (6.9 bar), as compared to the total amount of 1,320 SCFM (2,232 M3/hr) for the three home-made air knives.  With a 24-hour operation, the Super Air Knives saved them a lot of money.  The Return on Investment, ROI, was less than 30 days.  As a note, the Super Air Knife only has a noise level of 72 dBA at 100 PSIG. 

If you are looking to improve your blow-off application to increase production rates, reduce waste and improve safety, the EXAIR Super Air Knives can provide that solution.  With the customer above, the development happened immediately with a short ROI.  If you have a similar application and want to discuss it with an Application Engineer at EXAIR, you can contact us directly.  We’d be happy to help you.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Photo: Steel Roll Alignment by Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier.  Creative Commons 2.0

Cleaning with an Air Wipe

Published on by John BallLeave a comment

I received a call about a blow-off operation. The customer had an automated machine that would thread, cut, and stack a 1” (25mm) diameter pipe. The operation was ran by a CNC lathe that would thread both ends and cut the pipe to length. An automatic arm would feed the next piece of pipe into the lathe, and at the same time, push the finished piece of pipe through the chuck. Another robot arm would grab the finished pipe and stack it. The reason for his call was that he was losing coolant from his CNC machine. He used the coolant for the cutting and threading operations. When the CNC lathe would cut the pipe to length, the coolant would leak into the center of the pipe. As it was being brought out of the machine, coolant would leak onto the floor. It was a safety issue as well as the cost to replace the coolant. He wanted to keep as much coolant inside his machine during his operation.

Air Wipe blowing off outside of pipe
Air Wipe blowing off outside of pipe

The customer believed that he would need two types of products to solve his problem. He was looking at a Standard Air Wipe to remove the coolant from the outside of the pipe, and a Super Air Nozzle to remove the coolant from inside the pipe. In getting more details about the application, we were able to determine that we could use just the Standard Air Wipe. With the design of the EXAIR Air Wipes, a 30 degree angle of compressed air is directed toward the center in a 360 degree air pattern, just like a cone. This design allowed us to address both problems. The primary function of the Air Wipe would be to blow the coolant from the outside of the pipe. As it passed through the chuck to the robot arm for stacking, the Air Wipe would blow the coolant off the pipe and back into the machine. The second function of the Air Wipe was to keep the coolant from leaking through the center of the pipe. With the finished pipe being stacked, the conical air flow would blow into the open cavity of the chuck and right into the center of the pipe. As the new pipe was being cut, the Air Wipe would increase the pressure inside the pipe, keeping the coolant from seeping into the center.

Air Wipe - How it works
Air Wipe – How it works

I recommended model 2482, 2” (51mm) Standard Air Wipe Kit. The kit included the Air Wipe, shim set, filter separator, and pressure regulator. This would insure long lasting operations with the ability to control the amount of compressed air being used. Here at EXAIR, we enjoy solving problems. I was able to correct his problem with one product item, instead of two or more. It is not just about the amount of sales, but about helping our customer in the most effective way. If you have any questions or would like to discuss any of your applications, you can contact the Application Engineers at EXAIR.

John Ball Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb