An old timer told me my speeds were all wrong back in 2012

I was running a Haas VF-2 in a shop outside Detroit, cutting some 6061 aluminum parts. This guy named Frank watched me for a minute and said 'you're babying that machine, crank the spindle up 30 percent'. I was worried about chatter and tool life, but he showed me how faster speeds with a proper chip load actually cut cleaner and made tools last longer. Has anyone else had a veteran machinist call them out on their feeds and speeds?

2 comments

2 Comments

felix_jones6d ago

Yeah, Frank got to you before some old timer got to me? I had a guy named Gene at a job shop in Toledo tell me the exact same thing around 2011. I was running a Mori Seiki and creeping along with a wimpy cut, and he just walked over and cranked the override knob without asking. Scared me at first but he was right, the finish was way better and I stopped burning up inserts. That "babying the machine" thing is real, they just know from decades of wearing out handles.

sagey696d ago

Did Gene also have a habit of showing up with a half-smoked cigarette behind his ear and a coffee that looked more like sludge? That reminds me of a guy named Pete I ran into at a shop in Akron around 2008. He had this beat up old Bridgeport that sounded like it was gonna throw a belt every time you hit the power feed, but he could hold a thou all day long on that thing. One time he showed me how to grind a HSS tool on a bench grinder while practically blind, just from feel. Said real machinists didn't need carbide, they needed calluses. What a character.