Cutting Oil For Drilling Stainless Steel

Here is the right way to drill stainless steel.

Cutting oil for drilling stainless steel.

When stainless steel work hardens it becomes very hard and extremely difficult to drill. Drilling holes even in exceptionally hard stainless is fairly easy even if you have comparatively simple low tech tools. This characteristic makes it challenging to break the chip which is especially important in a drilling operation because the chips need to be broken and evacuated from the hole as quickly as possible to reduce the chance of recutting. A go to material in transportation consumer goods food production construction and a variety of other industries stainless steel plates and tubes are popular work materials for drilling and tapping applications.

Stainless steel exotic alloys and very hard metals demand a very high level of performance from the cutting oil. The key is keeping the production of friction generated heat to a minimum either with cooling pastes and liquids or believe it or not plain ol water. Where tough low machinability metals are involved you will need highly additized cutting oil with excellent extreme pressure ep and anti weld. Other metals like brass and aluminum are easy to machine with general purpose oils.

Stainless is actually a relatively soft metal at least in its initial state. I use this cutting oil when working with a drill press and it works great. What stainless tends to do is work harden fairly quickly when heated and drilling at high speed creates a lot of heat. I used to use motor oil to keep from burning up the drill bits but this cutting oil works so much better.

Makes the drilling much easier and greatly extends the length of time between sharping drill bits.