Hi Alan .

What you set up depends on a few things :

What sort of set up do you have for a Mill ?

Does it have a chip/coolant tray or is it just mounted to a bench ?

What tooling are you using , HSS ot TC orTCT .

Are you facing/surfacing or milling slots or side milling ?

How much cash you want to spend and how often will it get used .

Ok so if you're using HSS ( i suspect ) and just facing /surfacing – a drip feed is all you need but if you are milling slots some more flow to wash away the chips can help .

If your mill is mounted directly to a bench without a tray you won't want anything more than few drops here and there as it will run everywhere .

If you are facing and can use carbide cutters (TC) or carbide tipped (TCT) i wouldn't bother with coolant .

A simple set up is a plastic drink bottle, plastic hose (fish tank airaitor hose works well ) and a small valve (from fishtank airaitor system as well) just fill the bottle then hang it up over the mill and use gravity for drip feed , there are some complete drip feed units available from machinery suppliers so you don't need to make one up if you don't mind forking out the cash for a bottle and a hose .

If you need a flood system then a system specifically designed for this is the way to go and your local machinery supply shop will set you up but $$$$

For very small work i just use an old SINGER OIL bottle filled with some made up coolant and drip it onto the work by hand as i feed the cutter along , also good for the drilling machine .

I don't know what the new cutting fluids are like for lifespan ? when i used to operate roll grinders about 20yrs ago we had to empty every tank for Christmas as the 4 week holiday was long enough for it to go rancid .

And watch out for the splash ! i ended up making some removable gaurds to stop coolant getting away from me especially with small cutters running at a higher speed .

Ian

I have set up a simple flood coolant system on my SX3 mill using a 5 litre plasic bottle as a tank and a car winscreen washer pump. Power is from a 12v battery and a plug-pack charger.

You will need to make some sort of tray and splash guards to collect the used coolant and drain it back to the tank.

PaulJ

2hours of grinding later…

I assumed it was a difficult job, then decided to say, Just in case you are using a stone which is meant to sharpen hss

Are you using a green grit wheel?

It only takes a minute to do a carbide tool on a green grit wheel if your angles are easy