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My brother-in-law insisted I should always run a dry cycle on a new aluminum job, and he was dead wrong.
He said it would save time and catch any issues, but on a recent 6061 part run in Phoenix, it just gummed up the tool with chips and caused a nasty crash. What's your actual best practice for a first run on a new aluminum setup?
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evand6529d agoMost Upvoted
It's like people get a piece of advice that sounds clever and just stop thinking. Running aluminum dry ignores basic physics about heat and sticking. Your crash is the textbook reason we don't skip the coolant.
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grace9261mo ago
Why would you run it dry though? That's asking for trouble with aluminum sticking. I always use a good flood coolant from the start, even for a test cut. It keeps things clean and shows you how the chips actually wash away.
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zarak181mo ago
Yeah I saw a machinist on YouTube do a whole video on this. He was cutting some 6061 and ran it dry just to show what happens. The chips welded themselves right back onto the workpiece in less than a minute. It was a mess. He said even a cheap mister is way better than nothing because it breaks that heat cycle. Watching that made me a total flood coolant believer for aluminum.
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