> I once bought a nearly 40 lb block of aluminum, about 6.5x6.5" cross > section about 20" long that way. Been nibbling on that for smaller > bit & pieces for a while, but it would take quite a large bag to hold > the swarf if I sacrificed whats left of that, and its dead soft gummy > stuff, wanting to pack up the flutes of your tools way to easily. And > I'm not yet rigged for coolant on this mill. The table has a drain, > but its way to small at 1/4" bore and would be plugged with swarf in > less than 2 minutes. But I can see a small pool pump and a 5 gallon > bucket of water if I could figure out how to rust proof it. I assume > there is such a product.
As has been mentioned here before, Gene, keeping chewing-gum grade Al cool is the trick, and metho does that very well, without mess. For small jobs, I've repurposed a small long-nosed plastic oil bottle, which can be persuaded to squirt, so its nose isn't so often nibbled by the cutter. It's a pity that they sell pure gummy Al, when just a few % Cu makes it nicely machinable, and stronger. (OK, enough Cu and it'll age-harden, which isn't a good idea for rolling or extrusion.) Yesterday, though, I just cranked up the spindle RPM so the chips were flung off, and forgot about coolant on two pieces of extrusion, it went so well. Piping kero about the workshop sounds distinctly scary to me. > So treated for rust prevention water would be better. "Suds" (water & soluble oil) may in time make the mill table look duller/greyish, but is fine so long as it doesn't sit in the sump for so long that it begins to stink. What about drilling out the table drain to a more workable size, and hammering in a bit of brass pipe to fit a bigger drain hose underneath? Erik ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
