lilya76•1mo agoTop Commenter

Hot take: Climb milling on aluminum is fine if your machine has any balls at all

Every CNC group I'm in screams about conventional milling being the only safe way. I got tired of it and decided to test climb milling on a 6061 part at my shop in Phoenix. Ran a 3/8 end mill at 8000 RPM with a 0.050 DOC and 60 IPM feed. No chatter, no tool breakage, and the surface finish was way better than what conventional gives me. I did this on a Haas VF-2 that's from 2004, so it's not like I used some fancy new machine. What I learned is that people repeat old rules without testing them on modern setups. My fixturing was solid and my speeds were dialed in, which matters more than the direction of cut. Has anyone else had good results ignoring the conventional milling dogma?

3 comments

3 Comments

kelly6381mo ago

I've been climb milling aluminum on our Fadal 4020 for years now. Key thing you said is "fixturing was solid" - that's the real secret nobody talks about. I run a 1/2 inch 3-flute at 0.100 DOC with 65 IPM and it's butter smooth. The old guys telling you to conventional mill are probably still running positive rake inserts from the 80s too.

danielnelson1mo ago

@kelly638 nailed it about fixturing, I had a buddy try climb milling on a flimsy bench top mill and it grabbed so bad the part launched clean across his garage. He went back to conventional after that one.

miles_burns1mo ago

Yep been climb milling aluminum for years on my old Fadal with zero issues. People just need better fixturing.