Cutting aluminium without oil/coolant

[Desertboy]

Hi I'm going to fit an MDF bed to my router mostly because an ecocast bed will cost £583+vat which is over 1/2 what I spent on building the router lol. 95% of what I will process will be wood/mdf but occasionally I want to do aluminum (EG make plates for another router) but of course if I use coolant it will knacker my mdf bed.

I was wondering if people had success cutting aluminium using only compressed air to clear the chips? Speed will not be an issue so I could take it very slow and shallow cuts to compensate.

Thanks
Desertboy

[Clive S]

I was wondering if people had success cutting aluminium using only compressed air to clear the chips? Speed will not be an issue so I could take it very slow and shallow cuts to compensate.

Plenty of people on here cut with air and a bit of mist etc https://goo.gl/photos/xVnL6vNar3rxUieU9

[Desertboy]

Plenty of people on here cut with air and a bit of mist etc https://goo.gl/photos/xVnL6vNar3rxUieU9

What I'm worried is mist will damage the mdf, it's not exactly the best surface lol but it is a cheap wasteboard for wood cutting.

[Clive S]

What I'm worried is mist will damage the mdf, it's not exactly the best surface lol but it is a cheap wasteboard for wood cutting.

I only use the mdf as a spoil board if I am doing anything that requires precision then I just surface skim it. the mdf that you see is on top of my bed

[Zeeflyboy]

Moisture resistant MDF would be good anyway, should be less susceptible to changes in humidity. I think mist coolant could still mess with your surface though.

Phenolic/SRBP is a fairly commonly used bed material and is basically for all intents and purposes unaffected by moisture... but a large piece or two will still end up expensive.

However you can definitely machine aluminium completely dry. An air blast is good for getting some cooling but more importantly getting the chips out of the way to avoid recutting... when machining dry I found single flute to be the easiest with these high speed spindles.

I have done plenty of dry machining, but I must admit since adding coolant I've been able to push harder and use a wider variety of tools with success. There are guys doing some very successful and high speed machining dry though, so I imagine a lot of it comes down to experience and knowledge. Definitely easier for an amateur like myself if you throw some mist coolant into the mix.

[Christian Knuell]

Hi,

I do almost all aluminum machining with trochoidal milling.
It works very well without lubricant and also without air:



Christian