Air Cooling for Milling Operations

[cfellows]

While doing the milling operations on my Fairbanks model engine block and flywheels, it once again occured to me that a steady, low pressure stream of air directed at the work would keep the chips cleared away from the cutter giving me a cleaner cut and letting me see what was going on.  While not as effective as liquid coolant, it's not as messy, and quite a bit easier to set up.

The arrangement I came up with required almost no machining and used materials I already had on hand...





The tip is a .030" mig welder tip.  It has threads on the end that easily threaded into a piece of polyurethane tubing which in turn was slipped over the end of a length of 3/16" brass tubing.



And the whole thing attaches to my mill/drill column with a magnetic DTI stand.



The magnet is quite strong and the arm allows a wide range of adjustments.  Since the assembly is attached to the mill column rather than the table, the air source stays on the tip of the milling cutter and doesn't move as the table is cranked on either axis.

Chuck

[mikessrc]

Hi Chuck, Why not try a vortex cooler?*

only needs compressed air to make it work and the temperature decrease is much better ....

*many diagrams on the Internet

regards

Miguel

[Tennessee Whiskey]

Thanks for bringing this up guys. I've thought bout the "suds pump" , compressed air, and the high tech combo. Some say at our speeds and feeds, no worry with nothing. I say at the cost of cutters, anything can't hurt. I would got my head slapped if I used an air hose around a piece of machinery in school, however, the part was always " blown off" once removed from the machine. I just don't see where a little trickle of air to keep the chips blown away is gonna hurt. Wood ( oh dread) saws have been using it for years. Now, as far as cooling, we could go on like congress

Y'alls Redneck,
Eric

[sshire]

Unlike Chuck, who seems to have just the right parts in some, apparently, bottomless "neat stuff I might need someday" bin, I did this.

[ths]

Is that just straight air, Stan? I assume that the pressure is pretty low, but where do the chips end up?

Hugh.

[sshire]

Very low pressure. The valve that came with the other parts is very nicely controllable. I just crack it and the chips go on the floor just like they always did but they're going away from me. A quick broom and dustpan and I'm done. Not sure how much the low pressure can cool the bit but it keeps the work surface visible.