Unpopular opinion: I stopped using the shop's standard 0.005 inch finish pass on aluminum parts.

I was running a batch of 6061 brackets on our Haas VF2 and the cycle time was killing me. On a hunch, I tried a single 0.015 inch finish pass with a fresh 3-flute endmill running at 450 sfm. The surface finish came out just as good, and I saved over 20 minutes per part. Has anyone else pushed their finish passes further without messing up the part?

2 comments

2 Comments

michael_thomas5621d ago

Exactly. I skip finish passes on 7075 all the time.

-1

oliver77220d ago

But what about the tool life?