That day a local shop owner showed me my speeds were way off

I was running a job for a sign shop in town two weeks ago, cutting some aluminum panels for a storefront. The owner came over and asked why my spindle sounded like it was struggling. I told him I had it set to what the tooling chart said. He just shook his head and showed me his machine running the same material at double the feed rate. Turns out the chart I was using was for older machines and didn't account for newer spindles. I bumped up my speeds and the finish was way smoother, cuts took half the time. Made me realize I should verify every setup against real world experience instead of just trusting the manual. Has anyone else had a local shop vet their feeds and speeds for them?

2 comments

2 Comments

logansullivan1d ago

Lol gotta love when the "expert" chart is really just outdated advice in disguise.

the_sage1d ago

Man half the stuff on those charts feels like it was written back when flip phones were the cutting edge.