Tried a different feed rate on a tricky aluminum part and it actually worked

I was running a batch of 6061 brackets with thin walls and kept getting chatter, so I bumped the feed up from 60 to 75 ipm on the finish pass as a last-ditch thing. The finish came out way smoother and the cycle time dropped by almost 10 seconds per part. Has anyone else had a good result from going faster instead of slower on a finicky job?

3 comments

3 Comments

wendyw713mo ago

My old shop foreman always drilled into us to slow down for finish passes. I ran a job last month with some 7075 parts that were chattering like crazy, so I tried dropping the feed and it just made it worse. Pushed it up from 50 to 65 and the tool stopped bouncing off the wall. It totally flipped my thinking on how to handle thin material.

the_abby3mo ago

Wow, @wendyw71, I totally would have slowed down too. That's wild that speeding up actually fixed the chatter.

paige_harris2mo ago

Wait, hold on though. I feel like that's just asking for a crash or ruining the finish in a different way. I mean slower feeds give you more control and time to react if something starts going wrong.