Warning: My finish pass was ruined because I ignored tool tip wear

Last month in Toledo, a quality inspector flagged 40 parts from my batch because the surface finish was off by 12 microinches. He pulled me aside and showed me the tool tip marks under his loop, said I was chasing feeds and speeds when the insert was already done at 200 parts. I had been bumping up the spindle to compensate, which just made it worse. Swapped the insert after 150 parts from now on and my finish numbers came back clean. What part count do you all run before you change inserts, especially on aluminum? Has anyone else had a customer catch this before you did?

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hannah_williams2mo ago

Whoa, hold on! I gotta disagree with you there. Bumping the spindle speed to fix a worn tool is just masking the real problem, and 150 parts on aluminum sounds like you're throwing money away. I've run the same insert way past 300 parts on 6061 if the feeds and speeds are dialed in right, and the finish still comes out like a mirror. The real trick is checking the edge under a light every 50 parts or so, not just swapping on a set count, because every batch of material and setup is different.

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