Question about a comment on toolpath order

I was grabbing coffee at the break table and heard a guy from second shift say he always roughs with climb cuts but finishes with conventional. He said it leaves a better surface on our old VF2. I've only ever used climb for everything on aluminum parts. Does that order actually make a difference on older machines?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_robert4d ago

Heard that logic before, but I've never seen it help on our old Haas. If the machine has any backlash, finishing conventional can actually make the finish worse because it loads the screw differently. I stick with climb for both rough and finish passes to keep the tool pressure consistent. What parts are you running that made you try it?

tessacarter3d ago

Actually ran into this on some tight-tolerance aluminum parts last month. The climb milling was pushing the material just enough to mess with our final dimensions. Switched the finish pass to conventional and it cut cleaner, like the tool was shearing instead of grabbing. On a worn machine, yeah you gotta watch for backlash, but sometimes letting the tool pull through gives a better finish than pushing it.