Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

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mcman56
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Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by mcman56 »

I have a lathe and mill in an attached garage but when I use oil for cutting the smell leaks into the house and disturbs my better half. I also worry about inhaling smoke from oil. Ventilation helps but is not perfect. I have been using way oil just because I have it. Is there something less smokey and smelly? I do not use it much or often so think any kind of water based coolant would be more trouble than it is worth for me.
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Greg_Lewis
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by Greg_Lewis »

I tried a coolant spray rig on the mill and found it was more trouble than it was worth. The issues were mostly the pain of mixing it and cleaning up afterwards, and sometimes clogs in the spray head. I'm not trying to churn out x number of parts per hour at the max cutting speed. Any more I just cut dry (gasp!) although sometimes I'll use a bit of clear threading oil if needed for finish. On the lathe I use the clear threading oil for tap and die work and sometimes steel cutting. The latter just depends on the alloy and how well it seems to cut. I cut brass and iron dry. Aluminum gets WD-40 on both machines. I don't know how bad the clear threading oil smells as I don't notice it, but Honey does complain from time to time. But I still get fed so it can't be that bad!
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SteveR
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by SteveR »

You could put some peppermint oil in with your Tapmatic or other cutting fluid?
Probably a better solution is to get some flexible ducting and a muffin fan and blow it directly outside. My dad worked for Chevron and would come home smelling like petroleum, so I'm conditioned to love the smell of oil. Lucky me! :)
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STRR
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by STRR »

You might take a look at AquaCut, an LPS product. Yes, LPS makes Tapmatic. I love this stuff for drilling and cutting threads. It is water-based with a rust inhibitor, and you will find that it smells like cinnamon when you have the right stuff.

I do not know how this product works. I know that when drilling a hole, apply the AquaCut, and your bit will start drilling like the metal is butter. Shortly, it will get hard to drill. This signals it's time to apply more AquaCut. The drill bit will cut very quickly again.
jcfx
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by jcfx »

All oils will smoke when it hits it's oxidation point ( in cooking it's called 'smoke point' )
the cutting fluids I use all smoke a bit during milling or turning.
There is a whole thread on practical machinist on using lard ( the supermarket kind ) and bacon grease for cutting and tapping
it might be a solution for you. Only thing with lard is keeping it from going rancid and attraction of pests.

https://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/g ... id-246029/
pete
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by pete »

20 + years ago I picked up that tip about using lard as a cutting lubricant in one of the Guy Lautard Machinist Bedside Reader books. It does work very well on most materials I've tried it on. But I use pure baking lard and mostly for reaming steel and stainless because of the better surface finish. I'm unsure of how it works with aluminum as I normally just use the Relton aluminum cutting fluid for that. And reaming speeds are usually slow enough there's no smoke.I also keep that lard refrigerated when it's not in use to keep it from going rancid. Personally I think it's a good idea to still wipe down and re-oil any tooling it's used with again because of it going rancid. With the amount of salt and other additives in bacon it's not something I'd use unless I was desperate even though it works and is pretty much free. Afaik all our modern cutting fluids have been developed as a way to try and replicate what those animal fats can easily do but without those rancidity issues. Some on the PM forums have said there's still no cutting fluid we have today that can do as well as those animal fats could. It's a bit tough today to find sperm whale oil at any tool dealers I know of though. :-)

About the only sure way of preventing that smoke problem I know of is to drop the cutting speed and the heat that's generated down below the cutting fluids smoke temperature. For most of us that much slower speed would be unacceptable and even more so with carbide. Flood coolant will also work, but in a home shop most of us find the mess, equipment rusting and never ending maintenance not really worth it if it's not used almost every day. I do remember back in high school all the lathes had plastic squeeze bottles of coolant and you were supposed to use either rags or paper towels to catch any excess dripping off the parts. Flood oiling like most screw machines use could work, but it's probably an even bigger mess to deal with in a home shop. It's also a much poorer method of part and tool cooling, but it increases cutting tool life by quite a bit over just using coolant. A shop vac with it's outlet air ported outside would remove the smoke and smell as it's being generated. But it's going to blow any heat or AC your already paying for outside as well. Anchor Lube is supposed to be a pretty good semi liquid cutting product and I've heard it doesn't smoke. But I've not tried any yet.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by Bill Shields »

I use a product called buttercut...very little odor and is based on lard.

Know little about it except that it works just fine for what milling and drilling I do. I use stuff recommended above for tapping..used to use rapid tap with MEK but gave up on that a while back :mrgreen:
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TomB
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by TomB »

I also use Buttercut for everything I'm cutting, drilling, milling, reaming, honing, etc. It comes in quart can with a spout in the top. I've never had any problem with it spoiling, but have had times when the spout broke off the can top hole. I can't figure how to make a replacement so I just buy a new can and when that one gets near empty I pour the old stuff in the new can. I mention that only because it illustrates that I've found it can be left on a shelf for a long time without spoiling.
pete
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by pete »

Between what you and Bill have said it sounds like I'm going to have to give that Buttercut a try. That brand has also been mentioned quite a bit on the PM forums over the years. It might be exactly what I've been looking for. I'm ok with that baking lard, but if one product will do just about everything it makes more sense.

I also forgot to mention the compressed air/mist coolant systems like the Nogas. https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/67778019 But I've never used that type simply because my compressor isn't big enough to probably work well with one. Some on Youtube are using that method and made by Noga that do seem to work well. There's also much cheaper off shore copies, but I suspect Noga may use some clever air and coolant flow technology to prevent (maybe) filling the room with coolant fog and that's part of the high price. Some on the PM forums have mentioned real health hazards and a sticky mess landing on everything else in the shop when using that type of delivery system. They even make very expen$ive air filtration units meant to deal with that air borne coolant mist. I just don't know enough to say if it's a good alternative in a home shop or not. There has to be some here who have tried these and can say for sure. If it works? Then one large side benefit especially with some milling like slot cutting, it would be a big help to keep the slot clear of chips and out of the path of an end mill to prevent that chip re-cutting problem. Afaik cnc uses a lot of high pressure 100 psi + flood coolant to do the same.
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tornitore45
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by tornitore45 »

If the cutting oil smokes you are probably cutting too fast too hot. For home shop work one can go slow and often dry. For the case where oil is indicated just stay below the hogging rate where you are pushing the machine.
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Bill Shields
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by Bill Shields »

Stay away from the air mist systems
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pete
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Re: Smokeless no smell cutting oil?

Post by pete »

Thanks Bill, that's good enough for me to not bother with one.
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