Thread: Climb vs Conventional

Hi Guys

Apologies before I start as I know this issue has been widely canvassed both here and on other forums, but I am still trying to work out the reasoning behind each approach.

Is it better to use Climb with profiles and Conventional with pockets, or the other way about.

Vectric appears to default to these modes, but I am not sure.

Looking down from the top of the spindle, the tool rotates in a clock-wise manner in all modes.

When profiling, the spindle moves in an anti-clockwise direction during a Climb cut, and in a clockwise direction when doing a Conventional cut.

When pocketing, the same directions are folowed, but starting from the centre and working out.

It seems to me that a different cutting geometry is presented by the tool 'blades' during profiling vs p[ocketing, and I was wondering why this should be so, and what if any advantage/disadvantage could be gained/lost by changing from Climb to Conventional.

My impression is that when doing a Climb pocket, the cutting faces of the tool seem to 'polish'the surface as the action occurs, while with Conventional, it appears to make a çleaner' cut.

If this is so when working with wood, would this also be the case when cutting aluminium, or would it actually be better to transpose each option. (Wondering if having the tool cut in Climb mode might lessen the tendency for the tool to 'dig in'in thinner aluminium sheets.

Hope this doesn't start another controversy/debate/argument/different points of view, etc, but the more I think about this the more obscure it seems to get.

Any ideas/thoughts/points of view would be very welcome.

(I have actually gotten off my backside and tried all the options in both wood and aluminium, but am not really much clearer at this point).

Hopefully, either Greg or Rod, or anyone else with a sound knowledge of milling various materials will know.

Cheers

Noel