I must admit I'm still quite new to this game and the first lot of cutting oil I bought was from Arc (Maxcut No 5) and it worked well but it did niff a bit. So much so the Missus complained. I also started to lubricate my ML7 with Arc's HLP-32.

As that ran out I bought some Dormer Supercut from my local steelstockists and it smells a bit better and seems to do a reasonable job – I'm now on the third bottle of the stuff which I use neat by brush or from the bottle. It's about the same cost, if not more money but is easier to get. I also recently switched to El-cheapo's ISO-32 at £10 per gallon – my old lathe pees oil from every orifice.

The problem I have is that I've noticed that my lathe saddle has started to stick when I get back to the lathe, until it gets oiled again and my taps have a gunky brown waxy residue on them with swarf mixed in. I thought it was rust to start with but it isn't – just brown waxy gunk.

Now my conclusion is that this gunk and stickiness is more likely to be the Dormer cutting oil rather than the cheap ISO32 but any other opinions? Does anyone use Supercut and like it. Are there any other cheap cutting oil options?

Many thanks

Jon