Drilling Lubricant

[Veselin Kolev]

This is strange. I see people recommending that I do NOT use WD40 as a cutting fluid.

I find this strange because at the 3 shops I have worked at, two private and one government run, they have all used WD40. Sure, there is cutting oil too, but none of the machinists use it. They are like, 30 year veteran machinists, and they all use WD40.


I understand the argument, and if I ignore my experience, I would think that WD40 is bad. But out of my own 3 years of machining, I find that WD40 outperforms any cutting oil. I dont know why. It just cuts faster, especially on aluminum. And, I have never had problems with it lighting on fire.

BTW, isnt only the propellant in WD40 really flammable? The oil burns, sure, but it takes a lot of heat. When you're cutting at high rates, it just evaporates, and thats what you want it to do.

However, for long CNC cuts, we just use water flooding. For everything else, its WD40.

Any machinists had any bad experiences with WD40? I'm curious on this one...

I dont know. Maybe I'm just a hack with machining