Rant: old timer told me to quit running my rougher so hard and I about bit his head off
So I've been running a Haas VF2 in my buddy's shop over in Bristol for about 4 years now, mostly 6061 parts, nothing wild, and I always ran the rougher at like 80% stepover because that's how the guy who trained me did it. This old dude named Walt, been machining since the 70s, watched me run a batch of brackets one Tuesday and just says flat out, "you're burning inserts for no reason, kid." I got ticked, I'll be honest. But he made me pull the insert and showed me the corner was chipped to hell after like 6 parts. Told me to drop my stepover to 45% and push the feed up instead, said the tool likes to cut, not rub. First run after I changed it, insert lasted the whole batch of 40 and the cycle time dropped by almost a minute per part. I felt like a moron. Nobody ever explained the why behind it, they just handed me a program and said run it. Now I keep a little notebook by the machine with feed and speed notes for every tool and I actually check my wear instead of just swapping inserts on a timer. Any of you guys get taught this stuff properly or did you all learn it the hard way like me?