Got told my speeds were 'killing the tool life' by an old timer

I been running a Haas VF-2 for about 2 years now and thought I had it figured out. The guy who trained me before he retired said I was running my feed too high on aluminum parts and that I should cut it by 20 percent. After I tried it I got almost double the parts out of a single end mill, anyone notice a big jump in tool life by just slowing down a little?

2 comments

2 Comments

uma_lopez3d ago

Dude, cutting feed 15% literally doubled my end mill life too.

hugo_jones23d ago

Yeah the "doubled my end mill life" part is what gets me. People always say that but never mention their actual starting point. Were you running it at 200 IPM at 0.050 depth before? Of course dropping feed 15% helps if you were pushing it too hard already. I've seen guys claim huge gains from tiny changes just because their original setup was garbage. It's like saying "I slowed down and got better gas mileage" after doing 90 on the highway.