The Day I Learned to Trust the Feed Rate Over My Gut
The Fine Dust That Fooled Me I was drilling a deep hole in 304 stainless steel. The bore diameter was 12mm and the depth was 400mm, giving an L/D ratio of about 33:1. The feed rate was set to 0.03 mm/rev. The chips were coming out of the flute as fine metallic dust. I thought this was a good sign. In my mind, fine chips meant the cut was clean and the material was being removed efficiently. I had read somewhere that small chips are easier to evacuate through the drill flute, so I believed I had selected the right parameters. ...