Have You Dried Up?

Have gone to spray misting using air line lubricators with straight mineral oil. Found it works very well in cutting aluminum.

I found that cutting fluids were great....however when I was behind the eight ball and needed a lot of stuff done and the recirculating pump on my horizontal saw was on the fritz, I used plain water with a few drops of dish soap in it.

As far as I could see, my horizontal band saw blades lasted longer, if anything, and the fumes were not nearly as nasty. And the residue can be tossed out back without contaminating the whole neighbourhood. On the other hand, one time when the shop roll up door was left open over night, the whole mess froze. So I guess it is a matter of taste in some cases.

I don't know enough about the milling machines to judge....but I wonder why you would NOT want to flood the cutting surface...

Even though water based have all these additives still find them to cause rust and to sour. Don't have that problem with mineral oil.

Dish soap would cause more rust detergents can be corrosive.

They are fabricating white extruded vinyl. Using some of the same machines that they process the aluminum with. The out gassing of the vinyl do to the heat of the cut cause enough rust then to add water to the mix. The rust is just one more thing to clean off. Eats up time.