Rant: Old timer at the shop told me I was "babying" my feeds and speeds

So I'm about 3 years into running CNC mills, mostly production work. Last week this guy who's been there since the 80s walks past my machine while I'm cutting some 4140 at a conservative 50 IPM. He stops, looks at the chip load, and just goes "you're not gonna break anything running it that slow, but you're also not gonna make any money." Then he literally grabbed my control, bumped the feed override to 120%, and walked off. The part came out fine, chips were beautiful, cycle time dropped from 12 minutes to 9. So now I'm sitting here wondering how many hours I've wasted being too careful. Has anyone else had an old timer call them out like that and actually learn something?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery19926d ago

Bet the farm on that old timer's advice and never look back.

sean78226d ago

The part about him just grabbing your control and cranking it to 120% without asking first got me. I've been running a Haas VF2 for about 5 years now and I still get nervous pushing past 80% on the override. But hearing that he just walked up and did it and the part came out fine kind of makes me wonder how much time I've wasted too. That chip load part is key though, once you see what proper chips look like it's hard to go back to babying it.