That old timer who told me my speeds and feeds were way off

I had a guy walk up to my machine last year at a shop I was contracting at and tell me I was running my endmill way too fast for the aluminum I was cutting. He was probably 60 years old and I thought he was just stuck in his ways. But I dropped my RPMs by 2000 and bumped up the feed rate 15% based on his advice and my tool life nearly doubled on those parts. Has anyone else had a random operator give them a tip that actually made a huge difference in how you run things?

2 comments

2 Comments

umaprice1mo agoMost Upvoted

That 2000 RPM drop seems kind of SPECIFIC for aluminum unless you were already running really high. I usually see guys adjust by 500-1000 at a time on 6061 before they see a real difference.

ninab951mo ago

Did that old guy also happen to tap his watch and give you a wink after you fixed it? lol. I had a similar thing happen with a 50 year old guy telling me to drop my spindle load by 15% on a roughing op and my inserts stopped chipping after three parts. He just nodded and walked off like he didn't just save me a ton of money.