I tried bumping my spindle speed up 20 percent on 6061 and the finish got worse, not better

Mason Ramirez · 2026-10-16T14:25:04.479802+00:00

Everyone kept saying to push aluminum harder so I ran my 3 flute at 9,000 rpm instead of my usual 7,500 on a batch of brackets for a guy in Tucson. The chips came out like dust instead of proper curls and the side walls looked like sandpaper, plus one end mill chipped a corner. Turns out my little router style spindle just doesn't have the torque up there and I was rubbing more than cutting. Anyone got a rule of thumb for finding that wall without trashing tooling?

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I tried bumping my spindle speed up 20 percent on 6061 and the finish got worse, not better | CNC Operators - Rigidtalk