"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" lloydspinsidemindspring.com wrote in message
. 3.70...

So nobody has an opinion about coolant containment? Or rigidity of a
machine made out of steel vs aluminum vs potential harmonic ringing vs
cast iron?

Well, I have _opinions_ about it, but I'm not an expert. (and I didn't
catch this thread until now, so I don't know what you suggested.

I enjoy flood. I use mist sometimes, but don't like it for the mess.
Mist (even with a 'fogless' mist applicator) fills the shop and my lungs
with coolant fog, and I don't really want to clean it up or breathe it.

I built a four-sided lexan shield system for my mill with movable gates
for extreme knee positions. It captures almost every drop. A few fly
out the top, but very little, really. It's erected with slot-to-bolt
fixturing and a couple of speed nuts. It only takes about 45 seconds to
remove or erect.

What kind of spindle speed are you dealing with? I've seen lots of simple 4
walls bolted together shields for mills, but most of them top out at 5K or
less. My 1HP router clocks at upto 35K. Its slowest speed is 8K (roughly).