Face milling typically uses face mills, shell mills, and fly-cutters to clear a relatively thin layer of material over the top of a part. Face milling cuts in straight lines at a constant angle, and usually at one cutting depth, though this is not an absolute requirement. In light of these and other industry standards for face milling, SURFCAM designed its Face Mill operation to be as simple as possible, without losing any needed functions.

The traditional face mill operations have used pocket algorithms. These algorithms remove the required amount of material but they provide less than optimal performance. SURFCAM's Face Mill operation provides optimal performance as follows.

• The stepovers are adjusted to the part width to insure a constant width for all material cuts. A constant width of cut decreases the wear on the tool and machine.

• The smoothest face is achieved by a Zig cut with the tool kept at the cut level. The tool moves around the part at the end of one cut to be in position for the next cut. This procedure prevents the minor changes in the Z level that can occur after rapid up and rapid down moves.

• You can elect to reduce burrs with a climb cut along the part edge on the final cut regardless of the face method that is used.

• You can make use of the large side step (at shallow depths) capability of face mills, shell mills and fly-cutters. You can set the side steps to be up to 90% of the tool diameter.

• The tool is never allowed to plunge into the material. Every face mill toolpath begins at the cut depth at a user defined distance outside the selected geometry.