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Had a guy at my shop in Cleveland show me why you never trust a used end mill's face
He was running a brand new job on our Haas VF-2 and kept complaining about the surface finish. I walked over, he handed me the end mill, and I could see this tiny built-up edge running down one flute from some previous hack job. Let me ask, how often do you guys actually check your tooling under magnification before loading a program?
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carr.abby2d ago
wait, do you guys actually pull out a loupe before every job? i used to think that was overkill too, but a buddy of mine had a similar thing happen with a mystery chip welded on a corner and it wrecked a whole batch of parts. now i at least run my finger down each flute and give em a quick eyeball before anything critical goes in the spindle. still takes less than a minute and saves you from chasing ghosts in the finish.
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samrodriguez1d ago
@carr.abby finger trick works until your calluses hide that one microscopic burr that decides to ruin your day. Loupe or not, I'd rather look like a paranoid weirdo checking every tooth than explain to my boss why we need to reorder a $200 endmill. At this point, I'm half convinced half the trade is just finding ways to avoid blaming ourselves for stupid mistakes.
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wells.christopher2d ago
Funny enough I actually do the finger trick too (old habits from a mentor who was paranoid about everything). A loupe would be smarter but yeah, I'm usually too lazy to grab one unless something already looks sketchy. It's wild how a little chip you can barely see turns into a full blown headache on the finish pass. Definitely pays to be paranoid.
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