Old machinist told me to stop chasing tenths on rough cuts

I used to dial in every dimension to the thousandth on my first pass until a guy with 40 years in the shop told me I was wasting time. He said leave 0.005 for a finish pass and you'll avoid chatter and broken tools. Has anyone else had an old hand change how you approach a setup?

2 comments

2 Comments

phoenix_adams603d ago

Did he say why 0.005 specifically or is that just his rule of thumb?

alex_taylor103d ago

Yeah I actually tried something similar with my own setup a while back, @phoenix_adams60, and 0.005 ended up being way too tight for me lol. I found that 0.01 worked a lot better because it gave me a bit more room for error without messing up the whole thing. Might be worth testing a couple different values on a scrap piece first, just to see what feels right for your hands. Once you lock in the right number it makes the whole job go faster for sure.