What do you guys recommend for a good drilling/cutting lube?

I'm trying the wax type from LPS. It works ok with brass and mild stuff, but not so good on higher carbon and stainless steel.

High sulfur cutting oil works, but is a PITA to clean up. Regular cutting oil smokes and doesn't seem to stay put. I don't have a sprayer, so I need something I can put a couple of drops down and drill 1/4" or so without a bunch of stops and starts to re-lube.

Mostly I'm hacksawing and drilling annealed high carbon steel (O-1 and 1095), and high carbon stainless like 440C and ATS34.

Suggestions, besides suck it up, deal with the mess, and get a good work apron? It's too hot down here for a leather shop apron in my non-AC garage!

Tap Magic, Rapid Tap, Do-Drill, Mike-O-Cut (really thick stuff)...and I have also used plain old STP on occasion.

For the steels you mention, I use Tap Magic.
Don

Gentlemen:

I typically use RapidTap or Tap Magic for most work. I prefer a moly based fluid for cutting barrel theads. Castrol has a product called Moly-Dee that works right well.

For drilling and tapping hard metals, there is no better product that I have found than Anchor Lube. It is a water based product that looks like a mixture of flour and water with a consistency of a thin pancake batter. It is mint green in color and has no smell to speak of. Good stuff.

Glenn

I use the valinite tapping fluid. It is much thicker than those mentioned and so stays on the tool longer. JMO

John

Tap Magic.

For cutting and drilling Cool Tool II works great. Was recommended by Bob Engnath to the knive making community some years ago. Is also a pretty good tapping fluid.

I also use Tap Magic, mainly because I started and don't really need to use much else. As you can tell there are a lot of good ones out there nowadays.

If you feel like being creative, a really good home recipe is to mix lard into kerosene. If you want something thick, use more lard or less K. It helps to heat the lard before mixing.

cool tool II as well