Surface speed trick I stumbled on by accident last week

Been running a Tormach 770 in my garage shop for about 2 years now. Kicking myself because I just figured out something obvious. I was milling some 6061 aluminum and kept getting chatter on the finish passes. Tried different feeds, different stepovers, nothing worked. Got frustrated and dialed the spindle speed way down by mistake. Meant to type 6000 RPM but hit 4000 instead. Finish came out mirror smooth. Turns out I was running way too fast for the tool diameter I was using. Looked it up after and found the whole SFM formula thing. Feel dumb but hey it works. Any of you guys have a simple trick that took you way too long to figure out?

2 comments

2 Comments

vera_campbell18d ago

Had a buddy do the exact same thing on his Tormach but with steel. He was running some 1/4 endmill at full speed all day, wondering why the cuts looked like garbage. Dialed it back to around 2500 and it cut like butter. Now he just googles the SFM for everything before he starts.

caseym4818d ago

My friend did the "dialed the speed way down" thing on his first stainless job and it came out flawless.