TANGENTIAL MILLING HAS LONG BEEN a familiar technique for speeding up flat rough and finish slab milling. In tangential milling, the inserts lie flat around the cutter's pitch line rather than standing up radially, as in conventional cutters. This tangential orientation presents the inserts' strongest cross section to the main cutting force so that edge life is extended and the inserts last longer. The original role for the tangential milling process was to improve tool life on big jobs such as hogging wide-area flats on large automotive castings and steel parts.

Scott Tilton, milling product manager at Ingersoll Cutting Tools (www.milling-cutter.org), said new cutter ...