Milling Aluminum: Cutting Fluids Tested!
Вставка
- Опубліковано 8 чер 2024
- Testing out various cutting fluids on 6061-T6 aluminum on my DIY hobby mill, and evaluating surface finish.
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Table of Contents:
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0:00 - Intro
0:25 - The Mill
1:03 - The Tool
1:39 - Speeds and Feeds
2:03 - Dry
3:14 - Ethanol
4:35 - Mineral Oil
5:33 - A-9 Cutting Fluid
6:43 - WD-40
8:16 - Breakfree CLP
9:05 - Air Blast
9:43 - Conclusion - Наука та технологія
Quite interesting results, thanks !
Thank you! Great pro test.
Exaxtly what i needed today. Thank you
Super helpful video. thanks for posting! :D
Great video, well formatted! From what I saw, WD40 was the only fluid to run down to the bottom of the aluminum, where the tip of the bit is. This means that it was the only fluid to lubricate the tip whereas the other fluids only lubricated the side of the bit. I have a rickety home made router and use flood coolant (water based oil, same as what is used on lathes) this helps a stack. Gets rid of chips in your slots and you can run the spindle as fast as you like because the Aluminum cant get hot enough to bind.
Thinking purely from a physics point of view, the stacked coins occur when the end mill is not perfectly parallel to the material. You could be getting a very slight digging in as it goes from side to side. The improvements with the various fluids would suggest they are reducing the digging in by allowing the cutter to slide more easily over the surface of the material. Taking small finishing passes is the obvious solution - try a couple of passes at 0.002in.
Outstanding!👍👍👍
I use canola oil for milling, drilling, turning and tapping
Ethanol is good to keep everything cool, to avoid aluminium to stick on the cutter because of heat.
The issue with aluminium is that a little bit of material tend to stick on the tip of the cutter during the cutting, so it leaves marks during the rest of the rotation.
Best choice is the flood coolant with a % of 5~10% oil.
If you can't, light oils like WD40, but also plain kero, diesel fuel and so on are good, but they make fumes and they're quite flammable.
I'm a professional metalworker but also a hobbyist, since after work I'm playing with metals, so I have some experience in both the fields.
In last months I'm playing with a DIY CNC to make alu molds for injection molding, on a small milling machine without flood coolant.
For those I tried various fluids, especially because I'm working in recesses (so I can flood the recess with fluid) and since the process is long I need something who stays in the recess while the machine is working and I'm drinking a beer with friends. 😉
It turned out that ATF fluid is a very good cutting fluid for aluminium.
It's quite messy to clean out after the work, but it give good surface finish and it avoid totally material sticking on the cutter.
Cheers from Italy!
I know I'm 2yrs late ~
Have you tried Methalated Spirit, in a hand held squirt bottle.
It's what I grew up useing.
It evaporates like the Ethanol but not as fast, it will stay pooled on the job for cooling, while having a mineral based lubricating action as well.
I am impressed with the WD40 finish you got !
they make a thing called a drill mill, it has the start of a drill and the flutes of an endmill.
I would be interested how GT85 works for you? It’s a PTFE lube spray. I’ve found it helpful on plastic and alu cutting to avoid chip weld. I mainly spray the cutter and perhaps splash a bit around the part on a larger job.
You can get Everclear in 95% Ethanol (Alcohol) by volume. I'd guess the other 5% to be Water. 1.75 Quarts (Liters) for ~$32. Thanks for the test!
Do you have a link to that black cover thing to your rails and leadscrew?
Thanks for the info. Ive only tried dried cutting and air blasted. Will try wd40
On amazon it's called a "CNC Machine Black Rubber Accordion Pleats Shield Cover" www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0087ZCY86
@@imnoexpertbut OMG thanks! Been looking for this for a while now. Big help!
I learned the majority of what little machining skills I have from an old-school machinist who was formally trained as a woodworker. This guy was obsessive with perfect part finishes and always swore by kerosene as the best cutting fluid for non-ferrous metals. I'd be hesitant to use mineral oil or ethanol in anything other than light hobbyist work as they both tend to degrade wide ranges of polymers (e.g. paint, perhaps your way covers).
7:50 When I first started making/selling an aluminum product I rented a manual Bridgeport and Deckel pantagraph mill from an old-school machinist. He turned me on to using kerosene. Worked just as well as WD40 at a much cheaper cost ($3-4 per gallon vs $30 per gallon for WD40.) Either one, use in a well ventilated shop.
nice video, which oil i have to use for aluminium extrusion cutting ( this is for MQL Type)
Many years ago kerosene was used as a coolant in surface grinding
Could that marks come from the spindle not quite being perpendicular to the Y axis movement? (Looks like the edge of the end mill scratches deeper on one side than on the other)
WD40 is deoderized Kerosene with a wee skosh of hydrotreated light pump oil. Kero does the job too for a shit ton less $$
The typical WD40, that you can get pretty much everywhere isn't actually a lubricant at all. It's the opposite and should not be used as such. That's why you notice it doesn't hold up as much for things like squeeky doors. Over time it removes every lubricant, that was on there before and makes it worse. It is supposed to loosen up rust and to clean parts and it removes thicker grease. Yes it does work very well as coolant on aluminium parts. For that purpose it is fine and is therefore used by many people for that purpose. You also can also use WD40 to clean parts, without making them vulnerable to rust (or actually protect them from rust), but never use it as lubricant. For lubrication the WD40 should be removed with alcohol, acetone or brake fluid (or similar) beforehands and then you can use a suitable lubricant afterwards.
However WD40 is actually a brand name and not the name of a specific product. They also make a few other products, that appear to look very similar on first look, but some of these other products are actually lubricants for various purposes.
Does the feed rate affect the finish quality? I don’t get very clean looking finish, although it’s very smooth to touch, but one can see the scuff marks on the surface. The material is 6061 aluminum, 6.35 dia carbide end mill, 2 flute. Feed is F120. The coolant is cutting oil mixed with water, flood type with air blower.
You should try a mister. That would keep a film on the part, and keep volume lower than flood.
is any natural coolant oil like vegetable oil or castor oil can be used of cutting fluid. or can you suggest me any other natural coolant oil for cutting fluid
Thanks for sharing your work! Did you 'degrease' the cuts done with oily fluids before taking pictures? I am asking because it could be that residue in the groves hides the marks. Kind of how wood becomes darker when wetted... I used to use WD40 for cutting aluminum with a fogbuster. It works, but I could really feel it in my lungs after some time in the shop....
I cleaned them off. The pictures make the finishes look worse than they really are, if anything. Good to know about the fog buster. I've thought about putting wd-40 in my mister, but the one I have can't do very low flows, and a little wd-40 goes a long way. What I do these days is feed hold, spray some WD-40 on the top of the part, run, repeat every 5 mins. I thought about trying to get a drip feed oiler to work, since that's more the amount I want to use, but I've never those used on a mill, just lathes, so maybe it wouldn't work for some reason.
@@imnoexpertbut Thanks for taking the time to reply. I have used all kinds of oils with a brush on mills, but at any decent cutting rate some of those evaporate and you get that classic machine room smell :P Lately I have experimented with food grade oils to see if I can reduce the amount of harmful chemicals I inhale and maybe improve the smell a bit. Peanut oil, olive oil, sesame oil and canola oil just smell bad. Avocado oil is supposed to have a higher boiling point, so I'll try that when I get a chance....
@@imnoexpertbut i just finished a steel cutting session using a brush and peanut oil. Easily the least objectionable cutting oil fumes from what I have tried so far. May put that into the fog buster in the future.
Well…. You leave some issues uncovered. The 6061 aluminum is a large part of your problems. It is a rather gummy alloy, with any of its available tempers. A rather long endmill is not a friend. Using a stub length cutter with .01-.03” corner radius, or even a carefully ground micro-flat, slightly wider than your feed rate can help. K1 kerosene was a highly recommended drilling and tapping fluid in the early sixties, before the tap magic etc. were added to catalogues. So was a paste of white lead and sulphurised cutting oil.
If you get a piece of 7075 T651, you may like the results.
Painting oil on a surface ahead of the cutter doesn’t work well, as it moves away from the area of contact, either from heat, or air turbulence.
Is that 2.2kw air cooled spindle upgrade? Whats is the main advantage you gained upgrading from 1.5kw? Thanks.
It is! I was going to make a video about it, but honestly I haven't found anything useful to say about it yet. I'm getting more or less identical results as with my 1.5kw spindle. I was hoping the ER20 vs ER11 would improve rigidity in some way (since the diameter of the spindle bore is larger) but it didn't make a difference on my machine. One nice thing is that I can use larger diameter tools with the ER20, although I haven't ordered any yet. One bad thing is that it's larger and heavier (for no benefit since 1.5kw is plenty of power for me), meaning a bit less Z travel and I had to upgrade the column stepper motor.
Try adding a mister. And it looks like most of the finish problems are from rigidity in the spindle column.
The nozzle I have there is actually a mister, so I could test what the results would be with various misting liquids. The more viscous oils probably wouldn't spray properly, though.
Oh, also, about the rigidity; that's a good observation, how can you tell? Because of the semicircles vs some other shape? I'm trying to imagine what the imperfections would look like if the problem was a less rigid X axis instead, etc.
@@imnoexpertbut I could be wrong but the patterns from the Mill are random and don't follow a pattern, when one of the Mills I work on had trouble it would leave inconsistent tool marks where as the other Mills I use don't, they are very uniform and precise.
or not square to table
What would you say is the best option for the preservation of the end mill bit?
In aluminum, end mills should last a long time as long as you're not causing chatter, or gumming up the flutes. WD-40 definitely helps prevent buildup of aluminum, but I haven't tested it versus other options.
@@imnoexpertbut Thank you!
Can you use Tap Magic on aluminum?
Please another cutting test with cheap vegetable oil and cheap car motor oil (or is this mineral oil???).
Not perpendicular spindle?
Though I have not tried it myself I was told by an Engineer that kerosene is the best for aluminum.
I'm so old I used to use WD-39.
I used to add the straw to the cans on Summer-break work as a student... 1983.
@@nickoutram6939 So YOU'RE that guy! I often wondered who put the straws on the cans!
Breakfree isn't a 'newer formulation' its been around for ~30 years.
Newer than WD-40, anyway. :)
Hello I bought out a warehouse with lots of 5 gallon buckets and 55 gallon drums of cutting fluids of various styles would anyone be interested boxes and boxes of various carbide tips and bits
I don't like A9- it's perfumed, so it makes me sneeze and itch.
usare alcol ciao
You better oil every bit of that machine after you use ethanol. Ethanol will cause that thing to rust so bad
WD 40 is not a lubricant.