I broke my own rule

Yesterday machining a part on the mill. I never blow swarf about when using my machine tools for obvious reasons. Yesterday though I was milling a deep 4mm slot in a part and the accumulation of swarf was making it impossible to see what I was doing. I couldn’t get my vacuum cleaner nozzle near enough either so I had to fire up the compressor and and get my blow gun out. No harm done on this occasion as far as I can tell!

Supposedly it can blow swarf into the ways etc. I use various small brushes instead and leave the vacuum for final clean up at the end of the day.

I sometimes use a large bore drinking straw (for blowing !).

In my apprenticeship days you were severely reprimanded for blowing down the machine to clean it at the end of the day. This had to be done with the swarf brush. There is little chance of blowing the debris into the slideway mating surfaces this way.

Using an airline to remove swarf from a pocket was an acceptable practice. More often than not though the swarf would be directed away by a good supply of coolant.

Regards

Gray,

Low pressure is probably the most important thing. Just enough to lift stuff out of the cut but not enough to inadvertently drive the swarf deeper into the machine.

I have a little in line regulator on an air tank outlet dedicated to blow-gun duties to save adjusting the main one each time I switch to the blow gun. About £5 on impulse from LiDL (where else) but I imagine similar things can be gotten for similar prices from the other usual suspects.

The same impulse buy picked up a similarly cheap manifold with 6 tapped holes which made life far simpler. Two "permanent" QC connections for the sand-blaster and coolant misters as well as the in-line blow gun regulator. Two spare female QC, one for PCL and one for Euro connectors so I can hook up anything easily.

Clive

I use a continuous low pressure 12V blower to just move the chips a small distance away from the cutter when using carbide without coolant. I also have an electric hand held duster/blower for blowing more than the blower but less than compressed air. Very rarely switch the compressor on.

Martin C

I use a 60 year old brush called a Turks head brush which has the brush head set at an angle on a long tapered wooden handle so easy to sweep away swarf without coming near moving parts.

I think Stefan Gotteswinter and Joe Pie demonstrate the safe and useful use of compressed air for clearing swarf from a job. Like most people who served an apprenticeship the use of compressed air was forbidden in the training machine shop, a wise rule as apprentices given a toy like a blow gun will find it impossible not to fool about with it. Part of our 3 days of induction into factory safety and a multitude of other stuff was a warning to not point a blowgun at anybody, in particular applying it to the anus will kill and does not even need to be in contact to rupture intestines fatally. Once you are a grown up and realise that gentle puffs do the job and a full pressure blast will blow stuff everywhere usually straight in your or someone else’s eye or into parts of the machine you don’t want swarf in then I feel a blow gun is useful. I don’t have a compressor but I would use a blowgun as it is useful and can be used safely.

Mike

We called brushes like that a gooseneck or elephants foot

I fitted adjustable pressurevalves with guage and watertraps, so just adjust pressure way down, but mostly don,t use iT. Light swarf flies away.

When I started work blowing down was the norm and the workshop had an old mill and lathe set aside for us electronics engineers. Your manager would hear about it if you hadn't cleaned it properly after use ie blown all the swarf onto the floor and swept it into a corner.

I never saw a compressed air gun during my apprenticeship or on the shop floor of the place I spent my last 30 years of working life. I have never used one and do not have a compressor.

At work the main use of clean shop air appeared to be for purging boxes containing electrics/electronics in bad atmospheres (ignition sources in fuel laiden air).

JA