I use Sterling Cool, and it lasts a pretty long time.
If you think it will be like a swimming pool, then no. If I let the suspended matter reach the bottom overnight, you can pump the water back into your storage tank. Borax never worked out for me. I used the leftover Borax to add to my laundry. A 5 gal container lasts me six months or so.
Mine works great and uses a pump. Most guys use gravity-style tanks and air pressure to move the water back into the table. It’s not expensive. Five gals is less than $200 and lasts for months. It is impossible to clean your table if you can’t store the liquid somewhere. If you choose to use water, drain it and refill it when you like. A consideration, too, is freezing weather in unheated shops. I don’t know where you live, but consider wintertime. I take it back I see you live in Michigan. Roll Tide😜
Standing fluid and water is bad. You’re seeing this for yourself with the table gunk. Also, the cutting fluid is a little more dense and will sink and separate when it sits so if you plan on just filling and topping off; it will get nasty anyway if you aren’t using it frequently. So draining and filling is the cleanest way to go about keeping things in order. Can’t drain and fill quickly unless you set up a system. I just use pvc piping and van stone flanges with a harbor freight pump plumbed in. Holding tank is an rv water tank.
But hey, you do “you”. Lol
I guess to answer your exact question, you can leave water in it, but you better be using it frequently or it will still separate and get nasty. Most of us drain and fill.
I run Sterling Cool in my XR table and love the stuff. I have a 75-gallon tank system setup with a gravity drain through a filter and pump refill setup. Takes about 10 minutes to fill when i need to use the table. Sterling Cool is good stuff, just have it drain away when not in use so you don’t lose any to evaporation
Yea, finding a decent storage volume that will fit under a crossfire pro table is difficult. Ask me how I know. You aren’t wanting to store potable water in it, but that’s all you’re going to find “new” on the market. I found a guy selling off 30gal white plastic barrels (lids fixed, with 2 threaded ports) that were used for industrial soap for a car wash. It fits on its side, but def not much more room to add any wheels or anything to make it movable.
I added a 50 micron inline filter, and have it gravity draining, and electrical pumping back up through a check valve.
This way, the coolant in the tank is clean, isolated, and kept away from light (because algae), and won’t destroy the pump impeller on the way back to the tank. As an added bonus, it backflushes the filter as a side feature.
I used mostly stainless to avoid as much galvanic as I could, and pipe doped everything with Rectorseal 31631.
Im running one of these barrels with 2 water tank bulhead type fittings. Easy to clean out also. I refill off 5lbs of air pressure. I also have a 5 gallon settling bucket everthing drains into first then it feeds over to this barrel. All the gunk stays in the 5 gallon barrel. Everything has valves in between them to utilize the air refill. https://a.co/d/b5vzeBd
Rural King spray tank, pex, and some flex hose. I generally fill to about 1/2" or so of the slat tops and this 16 gallon tankk holds all my table contents.
I am looking at sterling cool for my water table. It says nontoxic but was wondering if anyone has used it around pets because my dogs are always in my shop with me “helping” and don’t want them to lick up any splatters
I think that is a question you might direct to the company and see what their response would be?
I have the product and it seems rather benign but I would not want to drink it.
Lots of things can mess up dogs: chocolate, onions and mushrooms…not together necessarily.
I love dogs, but a plasma arc on their eyes and the metal pieces parts are not in a dog’s best interest. Although it says nontoxic, the Sterling Cool cannot be good regardless—just my two cents, as usual.
Dogs are better than people, but a metal shop is out of the question for me. Those dogs on the TV shows are never around more than an episode or two.
