Best Fluid for Hogging Metal
May 29th, 2009It Behooves You to Use the Right Thing
I have some lathe tooling on the way, so I’ll finally be able to work the aluminum I bought. Problem: Enco put the cutting oil in a separate package, and it won’t be here until next week. What to do? Nobody around here sells cutting oil.
Do I even have to say it?
Time to buy a can of lard.
May 29th, 2009 at 9:52 AM
Now THAT is an excellent idea!
May 29th, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Kerosene for aluminum
May 29th, 2009 at 11:00 AM
Pinnacle of wrong not to give that a whirl.
May 29th, 2009 at 12:52 PM
The big Warner-Swasey automatic screw machines I used to dick around with in my youth used this smelly high-sulphur content cutting oil, kept in a huge sump under the turret. As soon as you kicked the machine into gear, the oil pumps would start spewing the oil out of several flexible nozzles, and you’d adjust it so the flow was aimed at your tool tips. In the process, you’d get splashed with a couple of quarts, which is why rubberized canvas aprons were a de rigueur fashion statement.
When you were cutting some really tough stock, you’d be way over the oil’s smoke point, and thick clouds of sulphurous smoke would hover around your workstation. If you were really lucky, you’d peel off a long razor-sharp coil of scrap metal, which inevitably got tangled in your wipe-rag. Since it came off the carbide bit at about 1200 degrees, it promptly caught the rag on fire. Now, you had thick black smoke everywhere. And flames. Almost forgot the flames…
Environmental conditions at that shop weren’t the greatest, but we had it head and shoulders above the poor bastards that worked at the stamping mill across the street.
May 29th, 2009 at 2:12 PM
WD-40 for aluminum. Probably because it has kerosene in it? I saw I guy on a CNC use it when I visited his shop once. I thought I was the only one using it. He did it because it improved the finish on his final cut.
May 29th, 2009 at 3:58 PM
Olive oil has a high smoke point…Maybe you try some EVOO on your stock.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:49 PM
Back in the old days when I had to thread pipe with some of the exconvicts who held plumbers licenses I got used to plain old threading oil. Great stuff with a distinctive taste since it gets everywhere and there is no way to keep it off the little button thingy on the water cooler so that it mixes with your cold water everytime you try and get a drink and it’s too dangerous to wear gloves while threading and fitting so your hands are always covered in it.
May 30th, 2009 at 10:40 AM
Ed is right on the WD-40 recommendation for aluminum. The AL stuff I have is the typical Mystery Metal alloy, and most of it is quite gummy when machining. Squirt a bit of WD-40 on it and it machines like butter and has a mirror finish.
May 31st, 2009 at 9:28 AM
If you put lard on metal while machining does that make the finished parts “food grade”?
You may be on to something Steve…
May 31st, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Lard wasn’t really my idea. It has a long history of use in machining.