A cold forming operation was using a percholorethylene and wax combination as a lubricant over a conversion coating for numerous aluminum forming applications. The costs of using this type of lubricant layer were excessively high due to the highly regulated nature of the perchloroethylene solvent and high scrap rates. This stemmed from difficulty in controlling the consistency of the solvent/wax lubricant coating. Freiborne developed the Formlube 407 as a water-based lubricant replacement for the perchloroethylene/wax combination. When used over Freiborne’s Formcoat 7 conversion coating, the Formlube 407 was capable of providing the lubrication needed for the difficult-to-severe forming applications. Applied over shot blasted or bare aluminum, the Formlube 407 lubricant will perform in light-to-medium duty extrusions without the need for the Formcoat 7 conversion coating. Implementing Formlube 407 over wax combination lubricants resulted in a reduction of labor costs and number of steps in production. It also eliminated the highly-regulated perchloroethylene solvent from the equation, reduced scrap rates and increased tool life.
