General Cutting Oil for 1018 Steel

Somehow I am in charge of a machine shop at a technical high school- I'm a trained machinist, but only have a year of industry experience because some chronic issue developed in my hands, so "how to get a machine shop up and running" is something I'm learning to do as I go. The previous guy left the machine shop a mess. I've gotten the students through measurement, benchwork, tramming mill heads, and using edgefinders, and am about to get them working on actual material, but the previous instructor's exclusive cutting fluid was WD40. The only cleaning agent, the only coolant, the only rust preventative; WD40. Ok, there's some tap magic, but unless I'm mistaken I think that's, ya know, for tapping. Having only used the cutting fluid or coolant that an instructor or manager handed to me saying "this one", the process of researching this and also developing a curriculum and fixing machine tools is tough.

I could really use some advice on a general cutting fluid for use by these high-schoolers (and me) on 1018 steel specifically, but something that works decently on steel, aluminum (mostly 6061), and maybe brass too would be great.

It's just manual bridgeport style mills and a couple of barely-functional manual lathes, we're not gonna be making huge or deep cuts, we don't need a pristine mirror surface finish, a cutting oil that will help with the tool life of HSS tools (a few carbide inserts too) would be great, and that can be applied as-needed by the students with an oil can. I can order and store stuff that comes in 5 or 10 gallon containers, but if it only comes in 55-gallon barrels, well, that'll be tough to get without having actually seeing if it works in the classroom environment. Plus, as a school, there are "Certified Vendors" for the district, so a product that's made and distributed by a single company in Austria or whatever probably didn't put in a bid for a contract with the school district....


I know that's quite a wish list, so I'll sum up with- when money or quantity isn't too much of a concern, what type of cutting fluid do you use on a steel alloy like 1018?

I think most of us are not using oil at all, but water soluble 'coolant'. Mix it up and use in a spray bottle (as it sounds like you do no have enclosed machines). Almost anything will work for what you described, I'd mix about 10%, but still use tap magic or oil for tapping in you (imagined... described?) situation.

We use MobileMet 766, comes in a 1 gal jug.

Low-tech and traditional.

For 1018 I use dark cutting oil. Of the flavor carried by every big-box store for pipe thread cutting. Will smoke, so ventilate but cheap easy and traditional. If the smoke is a problem in a school setting then water soluble coolant as mentioned.

For Aluminum, the WD-40.

For Brass, nothing.

For manual machines I just use a sulfur additive cutting oil applied with a small acid brush. Big box home stores should have "Rigid" brand pipe cutting oil. Try that.
EDIT Plus 1 on the ^^^^

fuchs lubricants ecocut 6515

i run this on 15 of my cnc laths and mills as well as the manuals

Brass you cut dry unless into serious full scale production.

For school use, ease of cleanup, and ease of use, this stuff:
Cool Tool II, 1 Gal Bottle Cutting & Tapping 00268177 - MSC

TeachMePlease said:

For school use, ease of cleanup, and ease of use, this stuff:
Cool Tool II, 1 Gal Bottle Cutting & Tapping 00268177 - MSC

Click to expand...

This stuff is still available? You just made my day!

Guy at my first job had a jug of it, great stuff. I figured the label was so old-school that it must have been obsolete decades ago. Glad to see I can still get some.

$86/gal?

30W oil/WD-40, 75/25 works pretty good on steel for milling and tapping Bridgeport-sized parts.

May as well start 'em out right ... a bunch of cheap soldering brushes and empty cat food cans with just enough sulfur oil in 'em to wreck your pants when you knock it over

For stainless and other harder-to-machine materials, there's this stuff called Westlube that's clean and works super and comes in little plastic bottles. Same catfood applicators work good with that, too.

Search Results for threading oil at The Home Depot


any plumbing supply will also have.

As with above:

Brass - dry is good enough for toolroom apps.

Alum - WD-40 is good enough for most toolroom apps.

Steel - I just keep ripped up Mtn Dew can with cutting oil in it on the knee mill and the same oil in an old-skewl style oil can on the engine lathe.
I oike the old skewl can as there are no moving parts to die - like the upright style with the pump. Tip it upside down and "pump" the bottom of the can with your thumb. 50 yrs from now - that can should still be werking.

With that said - I would NOT recommend that style can in skewls. I have a love/hate relationship with it myself. That style can has the long tube/nozzle coming out the top, and I find it scarily easy to poke an eye out when it ists on the carraige of the lathe, and you go to peek at your work, and find that you are dangerously close to that can tip. If it is always put up on a shelf somewhere, it would not be an issue, but if I don't hardly trust myself, I Shirley wouldn't trust the rammy kids.


I use used carbide cutters on the Bridgeport, but in a skewl setting, you are not as likely to have carbide? Or maybe you might - up to 3/8" maybe?
With a carbide end mill you can doo quite a bit of werk with it dry. But if you go with HSS cutters, you will want some lube, and in this case - going with an old 80/90 bottle, or maybe a plant mister (?) full of mixed coolant to spray on the part and cutter to keep both cool will likely be the best. Oil will not pull away heat like the water based coolant will.

But use the Dew can of oil to dip taps in.


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Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Thank y'all. I’ve gotten a lot of advice in just a couple days and I really appreciate the help.

It’s pretty much only HSS endmills in the shop, but I've got some shell mills with carbide inserts, and most of the lathe tooling is carbide. It has been a while since I machined with brass so the only big things I remember are "negative rake angle" and "Material CS approximately 200".

I've been using the WD40 on aluminium with decent results but the spray bottles that I have out in the shop have a cap on the side that WILL COME OFF if it falls off the mill table and cleaning half a liter of WD40 off of concrete sucks.

Based on the material storeroom, the last teacher used aluminum almost exclusively and seemed to focus a lot on lathe work, but I've only got 2 lathes up and running. They do have a flood coolant system, but with all the other problems I’ve been having with them I am not even bothering to look at that right now. There isn’t much aluminum bar stock for me to get the kids working on squaring or milling to size. There is some steel I could get from the welding department, but especially since I won't know what type of steel it is and these are complete greenhorns, I'm not gonna start them off on steel. I'd rather have them gum up endmills with welded-on aluminum then have them brake tools in steel. But then again, I can’t really come up with too many intro project ideas for them to make out of aluminum (especially with the material I have on hand) on the mill beyond a drill size guide

Because the other departments in the school (welding, robotics, rocketry, construction, and electronics) sometimes outsource projects to each other, I’ve been stuck on some really hard-to-machine steel that the welding department couldn't identify with nothing but WD40 to try to preserve my last couple "I" drills because there's nothing in the shop beyond a combo square with which to measure drill bit angles and I am not quick at hand-sharpening drill. I will be able to order some material and equipment, like a couple drill point gages and bar stock, and wanted some advice on coolant/cutting oil.

Really, thank you. There's kinda a lot on my shoulders right now, trying to figure out how to run a shop when it's also filled with people (children) who barely know anything and their lives and education are in my hands...

As for WD-40 and it's multitude of uses do note it is flammable. I have seen fires when someone sprayed it on something on the hot side. So if using WD-40 in a setting with trainees I would suggest everyone knows where the fire extinguisher is and how to use it.

One thing that I might suggest is to demonstrate snapping an endmill on porpoise for the class.
Find the nastiest POS that you have there, and break it on a climb mill with everyone watching.

I never took machine shop in skewl, but in our ag class, we had a dandy old (in 1981) overarm style radial arm wood saw.
I don't recall what flavour it was anymore.
It was great for cross-cutting, but he demonstrated how NOT to rip a board.
Essentially he climb milled a 2by. This thing had so much power that it would not stall, and shot the 2by out the other side for who-tied-m!

This put a hole through one side of the cinder block wall 15+ feet away!
So you know what it would doo to your buddy had he walked in front of the other side of the saw.

Gods honest truth, even personally being lax in the safety dept, I don't think that I would even rip a board on it the correct way even today.
I can just see it going through, and then something happening and it catching - and throwing it back at you.
I think that there was a table saw there too, so maybe we never ripped with that machine at all?

It was respected, and it's not like we did all that much work with wood in ag shop anyway, but still....
You may forget the safety talk, but even 40 yrs later - you don't forget the experience!
Not that climb milling is likely to hurt anyone, but by busting a junk mill on porpoise - will likely save a few good ones later.


---------------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Satire of Sanity said:

Somehow I am in charge of a machine shop at a technical high school- I'm a trained machinist, but only have a year of industry experience because some chronic issue developed in my hands, so "how to get a machine shop up and running" is something I'm learning to do as I go. The previous guy left the machine shop a mess. I've gotten the students through measurement, benchwork, tramming mill heads, and using edgefinders, and am about to get them working on actual material, but the previous instructor's exclusive cutting fluid was WD40. The only cleaning agent, the only coolant, the only rust preventative; WD40. Ok, there's some tap magic, but unless I'm mistaken I think that's, ya know, for tapping. Having only used the cutting fluid or coolant that an instructor or manager handed to me saying "this one", the process of researching this and also developing a curriculum and fixing machine tools is tough.

I could really use some advice on a general cutting fluid for use by these high-schoolers (and me) on 1018 steel specifically, but something that works decently on steel, aluminum (mostly 6061), and maybe brass too would be great.

It's just manual bridgeport style mills and a couple of barely-functional manual lathes, we're not gonna be making huge or deep cuts, we don't need a pristine mirror surface finish, a cutting oil that will help with the tool life of HSS tools (a few carbide inserts too) would be great, and that can be applied as-needed by the students with an oil can. I can order and store stuff that comes in 5 or 10 gallon containers, but if it only comes in 55-gallon barrels, well, that'll be tough to get without having actually seeing if it works in the classroom environment. Plus, as a school, there are "Certified Vendors" for the district, so a product that's made and distributed by a single company in Austria or whatever probably didn't put in a bid for a contract with the school district....


I know that's quite a wish list, so I'll sum up with- when money or quantity isn't too much of a concern, what type of cutting fluid do you use on a steel alloy like 1018?

Click to expand...

I use straight up Coconut Oil in paste form for 6061 and COOL-TOOL cutting oil for steels, typically. Occasionally I will mix up some of my CNC Blaser SwissLube B-COOL in a spray bottle for some jobs, especially on lathe.

many prefer Starrett M1 oil. its mineral spirits, oil and asphalt tar. part cleaner, oiler and rust preventative.
.
many shop machines become a sticky rusty mess from poor choice of cutting fluids. there something to be said with keeping machines relatively clean, rust free and not coated with a sticky residue of some special cutting oil.

WD-40 is not what to use unless you already have a lot in stock. The water soluble oil (coolant) is generally cheaper because it is so diluted in use. Mix up big batch for the flood coolant tubs and you will not have to change it for months. Or mix up a small batch in a spray bottle.

Sulphurized oil is good for steel. 1018 is quite soft anyway, so not a lot of heat generated.

Like everyone else says, use nothing on brass, but keep drill tips ground with no rake or you will have lots of broken drills.

Good luck!

cutting oil for machining

Satire of Sanity said:

Somehow I am in charge of a machine shop at a technical high school- I'm a trained machinist, but only have a year of industry experience because some chronic issue developed in my hands, so "how to get a machine shop up and running" is something I'm learning to do as I go. The previous guy left the machine shop a mess. I've gotten the students through measurement, benchwork, tramming mill heads, and using edgefinders, and am about to get them working on actual material, but the previous instructor's exclusive cutting fluid was WD40. The only cleaning agent, the only coolant, the only rust preventative; WD40. Ok, there's some tap magic, but unless I'm mistaken I think that's, ya know, for tapping. Having only used the cutting fluid or coolant that an instructor or manager handed to me saying "this one", the process of researching this and also developing a curriculum and fixing machine tools is tough.

I could really use some advice on a general cutting fluid for use by these high-schoolers (and me) on 1018 steel specifically, but something that works decently on steel, aluminum (mostly 6061), and maybe brass too would be great.

It's just manual bridgeport style mills and a couple of barely-functional manual lathes, we're not gonna be making huge or deep cuts, we don't need a pristine mirror surface finish, a cutting oil that will help with the tool life of HSS tools (a few carbide inserts too) would be great, and that can be applied as-needed by the students with an oil can. I can order and store stuff that comes in 5 or 10 gallon containers, but if it only comes in 55-gallon barrels, well, that'll be tough to get without having actually seeing if it works in the classroom environment. Plus, as a school, there are "Certified Vendors" for the district, so a product that's made and distributed by a single company in Austria or whatever probably didn't put in a bid for a contract with the school district....


I know that's quite a wish list, so I'll sum up with- when money or quantity isn't too much of a concern, what type of cutting fluid do you use on a steel alloy like 1018?

Click to expand...

A trusted friend and commercial pilot retired to farming recommended NAPA Cutting Oil. it has not failed one time for a variety of metals I drill grind or machine on my lathe. My one quart bought in 2015 will probably last a lifetime. I believe you will like the characteristics properties and cutting action it provides. Teach your students well and stay alert.