On 3/21/2011 1:37 PM, Ignoramus1419 wrote:
On 2011-03-21, Bob La wrote:
So purely as an intellectual exercise... assume that water is 100% not
available in any form. What would you use as a cutting
coolant/lubricant for milling aluminum.

As far as I know, you have two options:

1) Vegetable oil based mist cooling, which you may not like for many
reasons.


Vegetable oil in mist form is pretty flammable. Try shooting some
cooking spray at an open burner on your stove sometime. LOL. So you
don't think a moderate pressure flood oil coolant would work? Something
like a 10 weight machine oil?


2) A blast of cold air.

Both have powerful negatives. Mist coolant settles on everything in the
shop and also spreads chips everywhere. Blast of cold air spreads
chips everywhere.

i


I don't think chips are that big of a deal. I've been sweeping up chips
for two years. One of the reasons I didn't implement a coolant system
on the mill(s) previously was because I didn't want coolant all over the
place with those higher spindle speeds. Now that the one mill is in a
bench top enclosure (have the base, but not sides built for the other
little machine cabinet) I figured it was time to do something about
that. Pete's suggestion about a vortex tube and a vacuum looks very
interesting. My only issue so far is that the DIY versions I've found
so far are pretty large. Simple to build though. The guy in the link I
posted earlier is claiming 15C (59F) cooling out of his design. I can
think of two or three minor modifications that should make it more
efficient with about the same amount of air consumption. Not an expert
on that of course. Just started learning about them a few hours ago.