Hi all,

I'm building a mini-mill / router for aluminium mainly but also wood and plastics so its a multi-purpose build.

What are the recommendations for cutting fluid on aluminium??

On the Bridgeport while making the parts I'm using WD40 but its messy and not that cheap.

I see I have a few choices -

Manual spray bottle/can
Mist spray nozzle
Flood coolant

As the time taken can be considerable I think manual squirt bottle is out.

I have read about mist but the fogger ones have a bad rep due to breathing the fog, the coarse droplet misters seem better but what do you run in them?

Then there is good old flood, I used to use it on the lathe once but damn that was messy :) Again what sort of fluid is good for fine slotting and pocketing in aluminium?

I am building the machine with coolant in mind so all choices are possible at this stage, its only a small machine - 350x500mm bed area.

So far i'm leaning to flood coolant but not sure what type or if something else is better, compressed air clears the chips but makes a big mess and does nothing to stop it gumming the flutes up on the tool.