Tread Cutting Oil

[s78wingrider]

Sometimes hard to find what I need in this area. Anybody know something else I could use in place of tread cutting oil to tread a piece of aluminum? Thank You, Aaron

 

[sweettractors]

I use most any light weight oil that is handy. 3 in 1 does good. Fluid film does well. Ken Sweet

 

[Soundguy]

ditto that.. when cutting or drilling.. just about any oil will work... bar oil.. atf.. 10w30.. etc. the regularthread oil I use seems to be about a 30w or so.. o bar oil and similar work nice..

soundguy

 

[MD3]

Add some kerosene to the oil. This will make a big difference when working with Aluminum.

MD3

 

[/pine]

Look for a product called 'Rapid Tap'...it is readibly available on the Internet from numorous suppliers...it is a superior product for cutting soft metals

[Correction] the same company actually makes a product called 'A9'

Relton Chemicals specifically for aluminum

Relton Chemicals

 

[s78wingrider]

I have some Remington Gun Oil here with Teflon. I'm thinking of trying that

 

[Transit]

Cutting and liberating oil are different, look at the names. If there were no difference there would be no need for anything special. I use cutting oil for plumbing, steel, copper, brass.

 

[Ken_CT]

S78wingrider, what size die are you using, and how many threads are you cutting? If you are only cutting a couple of smaller threads by hand, pretty much any oil will work, but if you are making many threads, and/or larger threads, you may want to use an oil similar to those already mentioned. My father used to tell me (many years ago), oil is cheaper than dies.

 

[SPYDERLK]

I am not familiar with treading aluminum. Is it a forging operation?
larry

 

[JerryK]

Believe it or not, a squirt bottle filled with a 50/50 mix of liquid hand soap [dish soap OK] and water works great. I worked in a tooling/robot center back near the end of my work years, and that is what we used. Would not be any good for a machining operation where lots of holes are drilled/tapped in place for hours, but for the odd hole/thread it works just as good as store bought... It is fair with alu and copper and better than tapping oil [which is usually too thin] , years ago we used lanolin hand cleaner for alu/cu... You are not putting something on the drill or tap to lube anything. It is mostly for cooling and keeping the metal from sticking to the drill/tap and to helping the removed metal to 'flow' out away from where the real work is being done. [which you can call lube if you want]

 

[DavHank]

The grade of aluminum makes a big difference so what works in one case, may not in another. Cheaper alloys of aluminum are harder to machine. When I was working as a machinist, we demanded 6061 aluminum for all our fabrications that required machining since the softer aluminums (while much cheaper) were harder to cut - we called it bubblegum aluminum. When you are tapping or threading with a die, soft aluminum will ball up on the cutting edge effectively making it act like a dull tool. Kerosene works pretty well, and some liquid soaps or detergent. On our machining centers, we used flood coolant mostly which was water and soluble oil with an anti-weld component. There is also a product called Tap Magic (one version just for aluminum) which worked great on softer aluminum. http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/images/smilies/new/confused2.gif

 

[Toyboy]

Depends what your doing. Hand tapping holes you can use most anything mentioned above.

If your going to be using a machine for tapping a whole bunch of holes you need the proper coolant.

 

[picker77]

Lots of things will work, I keep a gallon can of WD-40 on hand and keep a 1-qt horse type spray bottle filled with it, been using it for cutting oil on my drill press and band saw for many years. Works great, plus it's useful for lots of other things. Bought by the gallon, WD-40 is very cheap.

 

[Willl]

Even water.

 

[Bison]

Diesel fuel is all i ever use, works great for drilling, tapping and machining Aluminimun,

 

[Danno1]

.


I've used any oil I can lay my hands on at one time or another. But for aluminum, you can't beat A9.


.

 

[s78wingrider]

Thanks Everyone! And what's A9 Aaron

 

[Soundguy]

Information for A9 ALUMINUM CUTTING FLUID(PETROLEUM OIL PARAFINIE, 64742581) as manufactured by RELTON

 

[rjmack]

sulflo works quite well also.

btw, wd40 is a solvent, not a lubricant. if you are determined to use that because it's cheap, then maybe you would be better off to use diesel... it's basically the same thing and cheaper yet.:thumbsup:

 

[Soundguy]

remember.. lots of things lubricate.

naptha can be a lube too.. or a fuel.. or a solvent...

lots of diesel lubed IP's too.

soundguy