Cold Air Gun

For aluminum milling I’ve seen cold air guns used. Would the weight of a Cold Air Gun attached with it’s magnetic base next to the spindle work on an X-Carve?

The one thing that a cold air gun does not provide for cutting aluminum is lubricant to keep the aluminum from welding to the cutting edge and causing problems.
You would be better off going with a mist cooling system such as a Fog Buster. When set up correctly the fog buster does not fill the room with fine mist and does not get your table soaking wet.

Dave

Yes there are two things you want to do when carving aluminum:

  1. Keep the temperature of the bit under control

  2. Clear the chips

The mister is a viable option but I have never tried it personally. I heard from an expert with 30 years experience in the industry that the mister would be a good accessory for us. In the video @TaitLeswing posted carving aluminum he was using cutting fluid and a can of compressed air. Instead of compressed air you might be able to configure the vacuum to suck up all the particulates eliminating the need for the compressed air.

I thought that was the purpose of a cold air gun - to keep the bit cool so you don’t need any lubricant & the air to clear out the chips.

The shop compressor can provide plenty of air, but the chips will still need to be cleaned up. Maybe I will do both the cold air gun and a vacuum system.

Oh if you already have the compressor that will definitely clear the chips but potentially make a mess.

I’ve been looking into a mister for some time now and can’t seem to find one thats affordable. If inventables had something thats compatible and relatively cheap, I’d buy it instantly.

There are a lot of mist coolant systems on the market. Most use a venture to suck the coolant out of the tank and then atomize it into a very fine spray that fills the shop with a fine mist that you wind up inhaling.

A Fog Buster system uses a pressurized tank and dual tubing going to the head where the coolant is injected into the air stream at low pressure. You adjust the control valve on the head so you get just enough coolant to keep tooling cool and lubricated. It does not make a fine mist that fills the room and uses very little coolant mix.

Yes the Fog Buster is not cheap but in the end it is well worth the money spent. I have one that I use on all my machine tools. It is portable and just hangs on a hook by each machine.

Try one you’ll like it.

Dave