Old hand on the night shift told me to stop running my roughing pass so deep

I used to think hogging out as much material as possible in one pass was the way to go. Been doing it that way for almost two years. Then this guy Frank, who's been running these machines since the 90s, watched me for a minute and said 'you're just making more work for yourself with that chatter.' He showed me how taking two lighter passes actually gets the job done faster because you don't have to slow down for vibration issues. I tried it on a steel job last week and my surface finish was way better without any extra cleanup passes. Has anybody else had some old timer's advice completely flip your process around?

2 comments

2 Comments

webb.val15d ago

Frank's exactly right about that chatter issue - I've seen guys spend twice as long sanding out chatter marks from a deep pass when two shallower ones would've been clean from the start.

wendy67415d ago

Frank's dead on. Two medium passes beats one hog out every time once you factor in fighting chatter and fixing the finish.