Milling (machining)

Milling is the process of machining using

rotary cutters to remove material[1] by
advancing a cutter into a workpiece. This
may be done by varying direction[2] on
one or several axes, cutter head speed,
and pressure.[3] Milling covers a wide
variety of different operations and
machines, on scales from small
individual parts to large, heavy-duty gang
milling operations. It is one of the most
commonly used processes for machining
custom parts to precise tolerances.

A 3-axis clone of a Bridgeport-style vertical milling machine

Milling can be done with a wide range of

machine tools. The original class of
machine tools for milling was the milling
machine (often called a mill). After the
advent of computer numerical control
(CNC) in the 1960s, milling machines
evolved into machining centers: milling
machines augmented by automatic tool
changers, tool magazines or carousels,
CNC capability, coolant systems, and
enclosures. Milling centers are generally
classified as vertical machining centers
(VMCs) or horizontal machining centers
(HMCs).

The integration of milling into turning

environments, and vice versa, began with
live tooling for lathes and the occasional
use of mills for turning operations. This
led to a new class of machine tools,
multitasking machines (MTMs), which
are purpose-built to facilitate milling and
turning within the same work envelope.

Process

Face milling process (cutter rotation axis is vertical - 0° inclination relative to tool axis)

Milling is a cutting process that uses a

milling cutter to remove material from
the surface of a work piece. The milling
cutter is a rotary cutting tool, often with
multiple cutting points. As opposed to
drilling, where the tool is advanced along
its rotation axis, the cutter in milling is
usually moved perpendicular to its axis
so that cutting occurs on the
circumference of the cutter. As the
milling cutter enters the work piece, the
cutting edges (flutes or teeth) of the tool
repeatedly cut into and exit from the
material, shaving off chips (swarf) from
the work piece with each pass. The
cutting action is shear deformation;
material is pushed off the work piece in
tiny clumps that hang together to a
greater or lesser extent (depending on
the material) to form chips. This makes
metal cutting somewhat different (in its
mechanics) from slicing softer materials
with a blade.
The milling process removes material by
performing many separate, small cuts.
This is accomplished by using a cutter
with many teeth, spinning the cutter at
high speed, or advancing the material
through the cutter slowly; most often it is
some combination of these three
approaches.[2] The speeds and feeds
used are varied to suit a combination of
variables. The speed at which the piece
advances through the cutter is called
feed rate, or just feed; it is most often
measured as distance per time (inches
per minute [in/min or ipm] or millimeters
per minute [mm/min]), although distance
per revolution or per cutter tooth are also
sometimes used.
There are two major classes of milling
process:

In face milling, the cutting action

occurs primarily at the end corners of
the milling cutter. Face milling is used
to cut flat surfaces (faces) into the
work piece, or to cut flat-bottomed
cavities.
In peripheral milling, the cutting action
occurs primarily along the
circumference of the cutter, so that the
cross section of the milled surface
ends up receiving the shape of the
cutter. In this case the blades of the
cutter can be seen as scooping out
material from the work piece.
 Peripheral milling is well suited to the
cutting of deep slots, threads, and gear
teeth.

Milling cutters

Many different types of cutting tools are

used in the milling process. Milling
cutters such as end mills may have
cutting surfaces across their entire end
surface, so that they can be drilled into
the work piece (plunging). Milling cutters
may also have extended cutting surfaces
on their sides to allow for peripheral
milling. Tools optimized for face milling
tend to have only small cutters at their
end corners.
The cutting surfaces of a milling cutter
are generally made of a hard and
temperature-resistant material, so that
they wear slowly. A low cost cutter may
have surfaces made of high speed steel.
More expensive but slower-wearing
materials include cemented carbide. Thin
film coatings may be applied to decrease
friction or further increase hardness.

There are cutting tools typically used in

milling machines or machining centers to
perform milling operations (and
occasionally in other machine tools).
They remove material by their movement
within the machine (e.g., a ball nose mill)
or directly from the cutter's shape (e.g., a
form tool such as a hobbing cutter).

A diagram of revolution ridges on a surface milled by the side of the cutter, showing the position of the cutter for each
cutting pass and how it corresponds with the ridges (cutter rotation axis is perpendicular to image plane)

As material passes through the cutting

area of a milling machine, the blades of
the cutter take swarfs of material at
regular intervals. Surfaces cut by the side
of the cutter (as in peripheral milling)
therefore always contain regular ridges.
The distance between ridges and the
height of the ridges depend on the feed
rate, number of cutting surfaces, the
cutter diameter.[4] With a narrow cutter
and rapid feed rate, these revolution
ridges can be significant variations in the
surface finish.

Trochoidal marks, characteristic of face milling.

The face milling process can in principle

produce very flat surfaces. However, in
practice the result always shows visible
trochoidal marks following the motion of
points on the cutter's end face. These
revolution marks give the characteristic
finish of a face milled surface. Revolution
marks can have significant roughness
depending on factors such as flatness of
the cutter's end face and the degree of
perpendicularity between the cutter's
rotation axis and feed direction. Often a
final pass with a slow feed rate is used to
improve the surface finish after the bulk
of the material has been removed. In a
precise face milling operation, the
revolution marks will only be microscopic
scratches due to imperfections in the
cutting edge.

Heavy gang milling of milling machine tables

Gang milling refers to the use of two or
more milling cutters mounted on the
same arbor (that is, ganged) in a
horizontal-milling setup. All of the cutters
may perform the same type of operation,
or each cutter may perform a different
type of operation. For example, if several
workpieces need a slot, a flat surface,
and an angular groove, a good method to
cut these (within a non-CNC context)
would be gang milling. All the completed
workpieces would be the same, and
milling time per piece would be
minimized.[5]

Gang milling was especially important

before the CNC era, because for
duplicate part production, it was a
substantial efficiency improvement over
manual-milling one feature at an
operation, then changing machines (or
changing setup of the same machine) to
cut the next op. Today, CNC mills with
automatic tool change and 4- or 5-axis
control obviate gang-milling practice to a
large extent.

Equipment
Milling is performed with a milling cutter
in various forms, held in a collet or
similar which, in turn, is held in the
spindle of a milling machine.
Types and nomenclature

Mill orientation is the primary

classification for milling machines. The
two basic configurations are vertical and
horizontal – referring to the orientation of
the rotating spindle upon which the
cutter is mounted. However, there are
alternative classifications according to
method of control, size, purpose and
power source.

Mill orientation

Vertical
Vertical milling machine. 1: milling cutter 2: spindle 3: top slide or overarm 4: column 5: table 6: Y-axis slide 7: knee 8:
base

In the vertical milling machine the

spindle axis is vertically oriented. Milling
cutters are held in the spindle and rotate
on its axis. The spindle can generally be
lowered (or the table can be raised,
giving the same relative effect of
bringing the cutter closer or deeper into
the work), allowing plunge cuts and
drilling. The depth to which blades cut
into the work can be controlled with a
micrometer adjustment nut. There are
two subcategories of vertical mills: the
bed mill and the turret mill.

A turret mill has a fixed spindle and

the table is moved both perpendicular
and parallel to the spindle axis to
accomplish cutting. Some turret mills
have a quill which allows the milling
cutter (or a drill) to be raised and
lowered in a manner similar to a drill
press. This provides two methods of
cutting in the vertical (Z) direction: by
raising or lowering the quill, and by
moving the knee.
In the bed mill, however, the table
moves only perpendicular to the
 spindle's axis, while the spindle itself
moves parallel to its own axis.

Turret mills are generally considered by

some to be more versatile of the two
designs.

A third type also exists, a lighter, more

versatile machine, called a mill-drill. The
mill-drill is a close relative of the vertical
mill and quite popular in light industry;
and with hobbyists. A mill-drill is similar
in basic configuration to a very heavy drill
press, but equipped with an X-Y table and
a much larger column. They also typically
use more powerful motors than a
comparably sized drill press, most are
muti-speed belt driven with some models
having a geared head or electronic speed
control. They generally have quite heavy-
duty spindle bearings to deal with the
lateral loading on the spindle that is
created by a milling operation. A mill drill
also typically raises and lowers the entire
head, including motor, often on a
dovetailed (sometimes round with rack
and pinion) vertical column. A mill drill
also has a large quill that is generally
locked during milling operations and
released to facilitate drilling functions.
Other differences that separate a mill-drill
from a drill press may be a fine tuning
adjustment for the Z-axis, a more precise
depth stop, the capability to lock the X, Y
or Z axis, and often a system of tilting the
head or the entire vertical column and
powerhead assembly to allow angled
cutting-drilling. Aside from size, the
principal difference between these lighter
machines and larger vertical mills is that
the X-Y table is at a fixed elevation; the Z-
axis is controlled by moving the head or
quill down toward the X,Y table. A mill
drill typically has an internal taper fitting
in the quill to take a collet chuck, face
mills, or a Jacobs chuck similar to the
vertical mill.

Horizontal
Horizontal milling machine.

1: base

2: column

3: knee

4 & 5: table (x-axis slide is integral)

6: overarm

7: arbor (attached to spindle)

A horizontal mill has the same sort but

the cutters are mounted on a horizontal
spindle, or arbor, mounted across the
table. Many horizontal mills also feature
a built-in rotary table that allows milling
at various angles; this feature is called a
universal table. While endmills and the
other types of tools available to a vertical
mill may be used in a horizontal mill, their
real advantage lies in arbor-mounted
cutters, called side and face mills, which
have a cross section rather like a circular
saw, but are generally wider and smaller
in diameter. Because the cutters have
good support from the arbor and have a
larger cross-sectional area than an end
mill, quite heavy cuts can be taken
enabling rapid material removal rates.
These are used to mill grooves and slots.
Plain mills are used to shape flat
surfaces. Several cutters may be ganged
together on the arbor to mill a complex
shape of slots and planes. Special
cutters can also cut grooves, bevels,
radii, or indeed any section desired.
These specialty cutters tend to be
expensive. Simplex mills have one
spindle, and duplex mills have two. It is
also easier to cut gears on a horizontal
mill. Some horizontal milling machines
are equipped with a power-take-off
provision on the table. This allows the
table feed to be synchronized to a rotary
fixture, enabling the milling of spiral
features such as hypoid gears.

Universal

Is a milling machine with the facility to

either have a horizontal spindle or a
vertical spindle. The latter sometimes
being on a two-axis turret enabling the
spindle to be pointed in any direction on
desires. The two options may be driven
independently or from one motor through
gearing. In either case, as the work is
generally placed in the same place for
either type of operation, the mechanism
for the method not being used is moved
out of the way. In smaller machines,
'spares' may be lifted off while larger
machines offer a system to retract those
parts not in use.

Comparative merits

The choice between vertical and

horizontal spindle orientation in milling
machine design usually hinges on the
shape and size of a workpiece and the
number of sides of the workpiece that
require machining. Work in which the
spindle's axial movement is normal to
one plane, with an endmill as the cutter,
lends itself to a vertical mill, where the
operator can stand before the machine
and have easy access to the cutting
action by looking down upon it. Thus
vertical mills are most favored for
diesinking work (machining a mould into
a block of metal).[6] Heavier and longer
workpieces lend themselves to
placement on the table of a horizontal
mill.

Prior to numerical control, horizontal

milling machines evolved first, because
they evolved by putting milling tables
under lathe-like headstocks. Vertical
mills appeared in subsequent decades,
and accessories in the form of add-on
heads to change horizontal mills to
vertical mills (and later vice versa) have
been commonly used. Even in the CNC
era, a heavy workpiece needing
machining on multiple sides lends itself
to a horizontal machining center, while
diesinking lends itself to a vertical one.

Alternative classifications

In addition to horizontal versus vertical,

other distinctions are also important:
 Example classification
Criterion Comments
scheme

Among vertical mills, "Bridgeport-style" is a whole

Spindle axis Vertical versus horizontal;
class of mills inspired by the Bridgeport original,
orientation Turret versus non-turret rather like the IBM PC spawned the industry of
IBM-compatible PCs by other brands

Manual;

In the CNC era, a very basic distinction is manual

Mechanically automated
versus CNC.

Control via cams;

Among manual machines, a worthwhile distinction

Digitally automated via
is non-DRO-equipped versus DRO-equipped
NC/CNC

Control Within this scheme, also:

(specifically Pallet-changing versus non-pallet-changing
Number of axes (e.g., 3-
among
axis, 4-axis, or more) Full-auto tool-changing versus semi-auto or
CNC
manual tool-changing
machines)

General-purpose versus
Purpose special-purpose or single-  
purpose

Toolroom machine versus

Purpose Overlaps with above
production machine

A distinction whose meaning evolved over

decades as technology progressed, and overlaps
with other purpose classifications above. Not
relevant to today's CNC mills. Regarding manual
mills, the common theme is that "plain" mills were
production machines with fewer axes than
Purpose "Plain" versus "universal"
"universal" mills; for example, whereas a plain mill
had no indexing head and a non-rotating table, a
universal mill would have those. Thus it was suited
to universal service, that is, a wider range of
possible toolpaths. Machine tool builders no
longer use the "plain"-versus-"universal" labeling.

Micro, mini, benchtop,

Size standing on floor, large,  
very large, gigantic
 Example classification
Criterion Comments
scheme

Line-shaft-drive versus
Most line-shaft-drive machines, ubiquitous circa
individual electric motor
Power 1880–1930, have been scrapped by now
drive
source
Hand-crank-power versus Hand-cranked not used in industry but suitable for
electric hobbyist micromills

Variants

The basic parts of a hobbyist mill

Bed mill This refers to any milling

machine where the spindle is on a
pendant that moves up and down to
move the cutter into the work, while
the table sits on a stout bed that rests
on the floor. These are generally more
rigid than a knee mill. Gantry mills can
be included in this bed mill category.
Box mill or column mill Very basic
hobbyist bench-mounted milling
machines that feature a head riding up
and down on a column or box way.
C-frame mill These are larger,
industrial production mills. They
feature a knee and fixed spindle head
that is only mobile vertically. They are
typically much more powerful than a
turret mill, featuring a separate
hydraulic motor for integral hydraulic
power feeds in all directions, and a
twenty to fifty horsepower motor.
Backlash eliminators are almost
always standard equipment. They use
large NMTB 40 or 50 tooling. The
tables on C-frame mills are usually 18"
by 68" or larger, to allow multiple parts
to be machined at the same time.
Floor mill These have a row of rotary
tables, and a horizontal pendant
spindle mounted on a set of tracks
that runs parallel to the table row.
These mills have predominantly been
converted to CNC, but some can still
be found (if one can even find a used
machine available) under manual
control. The spindle carriage moves to
each individual table, performs the
machining operations, and moves to
the next table while the previous table
is being set up for the next operation.
Unlike other mills, floor mills have
movable floor units. A crane drops
massive rotary tables, X-Y tables, etc.,
into position for machining, allowing
large and complex custom milling
operations.
Gantry mill The milling head rides over
two rails (often steel shafts) which lie
at each side of the work surface. Due
to its design it usually has a very small
footprint compared to the machine
travel size. As a downside they are
usually not as rigid as e.g. C-Frame
mills.
Horizontal boring mill Large, accurate
bed horizontal mills that incorporate
many features from various machine
tools. They are predominantly used to
create large manufacturing jigs, or to
modify large, high precision parts.
They have a spindle stroke of several
(usually between four and six) feet,
and many are equipped with a tailstock
to perform very long boring operations
without losing accuracy as the bore
increases in depth. A typical bed has X
and Y travel, and is between three and
four feet square with a rotary table or a
larger rectangle without a table. The
pendant usually provides between four
and eight feet of vertical movement.
Some mills have a large (30" or more)
integral facing head. Right angle rotary
tables and vertical milling attachments
are available for further flexibility.
Jig borer Vertical mills that are built to
bore holes, and very light slot or face
milling. They are typically bed mills
with a long spindle throw. The beds are
more accurate, and the handwheels
are graduated down to .0001" for
precise hole placement.
Knee mill or knee-and-column mill
refers to any milling machine whose x-
y table rides up and down the column
on a vertically adjustable knee. This
includes Bridgeports.
Planer-style mill (Plano Milling)Large
mills built in the same configuration as
planers except with a milling spindle
instead of a planing head. This term is
growing dated as planers themselves
are largely a thing of the past.
Ram-type mill This can refer to any
mill that has a cutting head mounted
on a sliding ram. The spindle can be
oriented either vertically or
horizontally. In practice most mills with
rams also involve swiveling ability,
whether or not it is called "turret"
mounting. The Bridgeport
configuration can be classified as a
vertical-head ram-type mill. Van
Norman Machine Tool Company
 specialized in ram-type mills through
most of the 20th century. Since the
wide dissemination of CNC machines,
ram-type mills are still made in the
Bridgeport configuration (with either
manual or CNC control), but the less
common variations (such as were built
by Van Norman, Index, and others)
have died out, their work being done
now by either Bridgeport-form mills or
machining centers.
Turret mill More commonly referred to
as Bridgeport-type milling machines.
The spindle can be aligned in many
different positions for a very versatile,
if somewhat less rigid machine.
Alternative terminology
A milling machine is often called a mill
by machinists. The archaic term miller
was commonly used in the 19th and
early 20th centuries.[7]

Since the 1960s there has developed an

overlap of usage between the terms
milling machine and machining center.
NC/CNC machining centers evolved from
milling machines, which is why the
terminology evolved gradually with
considerable overlap that still persists.
The distinction, when one is made, is that
a machining center is a mill with features
that pre-CNC mills never had, especially
an automatic tool changer (ATC) that
includes a tool magazine (carousel), and
sometimes an automatic pallet changer
(APC). In typical usage, all machining
centers are mills, but not all mills are
machining centers; only mills with ATCs
are machining centers.

Computer numerical control

Thin wall milling of aluminum using a water based cutting fluid on the milling cutter

Most CNC milling machines (also called

machining centers) are computer
controlled vertical mills with the ability to
move the spindle vertically along the Z-
axis. This extra degree of freedom
permits their use in diesinking, engraving
applications, and 2.5D surfaces such as
relief sculptures. When combined with
the use of conical tools or a ball nose
cutter, it also significantly improves
milling precision without impacting
speed, providing a cost-efficient
alternative to most flat-surface hand-
engraving work.

Five-axis machining center with rotating table and computer interface

CNC machines can exist in virtually any
of the forms of manual machinery, like
horizontal mills. The most advanced CNC
milling-machines, the multiaxis machine,
add two more axes in addition to the
three normal axes (XYZ). Horizontal
milling machines also have a C or Q axis,
allowing the horizontally mounted
workpiece to be rotated, essentially
allowing asymmetric and eccentric
turning. The fifth axis (B axis) controls
the tilt of the tool itself. When all of these
axes are used in conjunction with each
other, extremely complicated geometries,
even organic geometries such as a
human head can be made with relative
ease with these machines. But the skill to
program such geometries is beyond that
of most operators. Therefore, 5-axis
milling machines are practically always
programmed with CAM.

The operating system of such machines

is a closed loop system and functions on
feedback.
These machines have
developed from the basic NC (NUMERIC
CONTROL) machines. A computerized
form of NC machines is known as CNC
machines. A set of instructions (called a
program) is used to guide the machine
for desired operations. There are over
100 different G-codes and M-codes.[8]
Some very commonly used codes, which
are used in the program are:

G00 – rapid traverse

G01 – linear interpolation

of tool

G02 - circular arc

clockwise (cw)

G03 - circular arc

counter-clockwise (ccw)

G20 - dimensions in inch

G21 – dimensions in mm

G28 - return to reference

point

G40 - Tool compensation

cancel

G41 - Tool compensation

left

G42 - Tool compensation

right

G43 - Tool length

compensation

G54 - Select coordinate

system #1

M03 – spindle start

(clockwise)

M04 – spindle start

(counter-clockwise)

M05 - spindle stop

M06 - tool change

M08 - coolant on

 M09 - coolant off

M30 – program end

Various other codes are also used. A

CNC machine is operated by a single
operator called a programmer. This
machine is capable of performing
various operations automatically and
economically.

With the declining price of computers

and open source CNC software, the entry
price of CNC machines has plummeted.

High speed steel with cobalt endmills used for cutting operations in a milling machine.
Tooling

The accessories and cutting tools used

on machine tools (including milling
machines) are referred to in aggregate by
the mass noun "tooling". There is a high
degree of standardization of the tooling
used with CNC milling machines, and a
lesser degree with manual milling
machines. To ease up the organization of
the tooling in CNC production many
companies use a tool management
solution.

Milling cutters for specific applications

are held in various tooling configurations.
CNC milling machines nearly always use
SK (or ISO), CAT, BT or HSK tooling. SK
tooling is the most common in Europe,
while CAT tooling, sometimes called V-
Flange Tooling, is the oldest and
probably most common type in the USA.
CAT tooling was invented by Caterpillar
Inc. of Peoria, Illinois, in order to
standardize the tooling used on their
machinery. CAT tooling comes in a range
of sizes designated as CAT-30, CAT-40,
CAT-50, etc. The number refers to the
Association for Manufacturing
Technology (formerly the National
Machine Tool Builders Association
(NMTB)) taper size of the tool.
A CAT-40 toolholder

A boring head on a Morse taper shank

An improvement on CAT Tooling is BT

Tooling, which looks similar and can
easily be confused with CAT tooling. Like
CAT Tooling, BT Tooling comes in a
range of sizes and uses the same NMTB
body taper. However, BT tooling is
symmetrical about the spindle axis,
which CAT tooling is not. This gives BT
tooling greater stability and balance at
high speeds. One other subtle difference
between these two toolholders is the
thread used to hold the pull stud. CAT
Tooling is all Imperial thread and BT
Tooling is all Metric thread. Note that this
affects the pull stud only; it does not
affect the tool that they can hold. Both
types of tooling are sold to accept both
Imperial and metric sized tools.

SK and HSK tooling, sometimes called

"Hollow Shank Tooling", is much more
common in Europe where it was invented
than it is in the United States. It is
claimed that HSK tooling is even better
than BT Tooling at high speeds. The
holding mechanism for HSK tooling is
placed within the (hollow) body of the
tool and, as spindle speed increases, it
expands, gripping the tool more tightly
with increasing spindle speed. There is
no pull stud with this type of tooling.

For manual milling machines, there is

less standardization, because a greater
plurality of formerly competing standards
exist. Newer and larger manual machines
usually use NMTB tooling. This tooling is
somewhat similar to CAT tooling but
requires a drawbar within the milling
machine. Furthermore, there are a
number of variations with NMTB tooling
that make interchangeability
troublesome. The older a machine, the
greater the plurality of standards that
may apply (e.g., Morse, Jarno, Brown &
Sharpe, Van Norman, and other less
common builder-specific tapers).
However, two standards that have seen
especially wide usage are the Morse #2
and the R8, whose prevalence was driven
by the popularity of the mills built by
Bridgeport Machines of Bridgeport,
Connecticut. These mills so dominated
the market for such a long time that
"Bridgeport" is virtually synonymous with
"manual milling machine". Most of the
machines that Bridgeport made between
1938 and 1965 used a Morse taper #2,
and from about 1965 onward most used
an R8 taper.

Accessories

Arbor support
Stop block

CNC pocket milling

Pocket milling has been regarded as one
of the most widely used operations in
machining. It is extensively used in
aerospace and shipyard industries. In
pocket milling the material inside an
arbitrarily closed boundary on a flat
surface of a work piece is removed to a
fixed depth. Generally flat bottom end
mills are used for pocket milling. Firstly
roughing operation is done to remove the
bulk of material and then the pocket is
finished by a finish end mill.[9]
Most of
the industrial milling operations can be
taken care of by 2.5 axis CNC milling.
This type of path control can machine up
to 80% of all mechanical parts. Since the
importance of pocket milling is very
relevant, therefore effective pocketing
approaches can result in reduction in
machining time and cost.[10]NC pocket
milling can be carried out mainly by two
tool paths, viz. linear and non-linear.[11]

Linear tool path

In this approach, the tool movement is
unidirectional. Zig-zag and zig tool paths
are the examples of linear tool path.

Zig-zag

In zig-zag milling, material is removed

both in forward and backward paths. In
this case, cutting is done both with and
against the rotation of the spindle. This
reduces the machining time but
increases machine chatter and tool wear.

Zig

In zig milling, the tool moves only in one

direction. The tool has to be lifted and
retracted after each cut, due to which
machining time increases. However, in
case of zig milling surface quality is
better.

Non-linear tool path

In this approach, tool movement is multi-

directional. One example of non-linear
tool path is contour-parallel tool path.

Contour-parallel

In this approach, the required pocket

boundary is used to derive the tool path.
In this case the cutter is always in
contact with the work material. Hence
the idle time spent in positioning and
retracting the tool is avoided. For large-
scale material removal, contour-parallel
tool path is widely used because it can
be consistently used with up-cut or
down-cut method during the entire
process. There are three different
approaches that fall into the category of
contour-parallel tool path generation.
They are:

Pair-wise intersection approach:In pair-

wise intersection approach, the
boundary of the pocket is brought
inwards in steps, The offset segments
will intersect at concave corners. To
obtain the required contour, these
intersections are to be trimmed off. On
the other hand, in case of convex
corner, the offset segments are
extended and thereby connected to
make the contour. These operations
viz. offsetting, trimming and extending
are repeatedly done to cover the entire
machining volume with sufficient layer
of profiles.[12]
Voronoi diagram approach: In voronoi
diagram approach, the pocket
boundary is segmented and voronoi
diagram is constructed for the entire
pocket boundary. These voronoi
diagrams are used for generating the
tool path for machining. This method
is considered to be more efficient and
robust. Moreover, it avoids topological
 problems associated with traditional
offsetting algorithms.[13][14]

Curvilinear

In this approach, the tool travels along a

gradually evolving spiral path. The spiral
starts at the center of the pocket to be
machined and the tool gradually moves
towards the pocket boundary. The
direction of the tool path changes
progressively and local acceleration and
deceleration of the tool are minimized.
This reduces tool wear.[15]
Zig-zag tool path

Zig tool path

Contour-parallel tool path

Curvilinear tool path

History

1780-1810
Milled gear teeth on a Terry style wooden movement clock.

Milling machines evolved from the

practice of rotary filing—that is, running a
circular cutter with file-like teeth in the
headstock of a lathe. Rotary filing and,
later, true milling were developed to
reduce time and effort spent hand-filing.
The full story of milling machine
development may never be known,
because much early development took
place in individual shops where few
records were kept for posterity. However,
the broad outlines are known, as
summarized below. From a history-of-
technology viewpoint, it is clear that the
naming of this new type of machining
with the term "milling" was an extension
from that word's earlier senses of
processing materials by abrading them in
some way (cutting, grinding, crushing,
etc.).
Rotary filing long predated milling.
A rotary file by Jacques de Vaucanson,
circa 1760, is well known.[16][17]

In 1783 Samuel Rehe invented a true

milling machine.[18] In 1795, Eli Terry
began using a milling machine at
Plymouth Connecticut in the production
of tall case clocks. With the use of his
milling machine, Terry was the first to
accomplish Interchangeable parts in the
clock industry. Milling wooden parts was
efficient in interchangeable parts, but
inefficient in high yields. Milling wooden
blanks results in a low yield of parts
because the machines single blade
would cause loss of gear teeth when the
cutter hit parallel grains in the wood.
Terry later invented a spindle cutting
machine to mass produce parts in 1807.
Other Connecticut clockmakers like
James Harrison of Waterbury, Thomas
Barnes of Litchfield, and Gideon Roberts
of Bristol, also used milling machines to
produce their clocks.[19]
1810s–1830s

This milling machine was long credited to Eli Whitney and dated to circa 1818. From the 1910s through the 1940s, this
version of its provenance was widely published. In the 1950s and 1960s, various historians of technology mostly
discredited the view of this machine as the first miller and possibly even of Whitney as its builder. Nonetheless, it is
still an important early milling machine, regardless of its exact provenance.

The Middletown milling machine of circa 1818, associated with Robert Johnson and Simeon North.
The milling machine built by James Nasmyth between 1829 and 1831 for milling the six sides of a hex nut using an
indexing fixture.

It is clear that milling machines as a

distinct class of machine tool (separate
from lathes running rotary files) first
appeared between 1814 and 1818. The
centers of earliest development of true
milling machines were two federal
armories of the U.S. (Springfield and
Harpers Ferry) together with the various
private armories and inside contractors
that shared turnover of skilled workmen
with them. Between 1912 and 1916,
Joseph W. Roe, a respected founding
father of machine tool historians,
credited Eli Whitney (one of the private
arms makers mentioned above) with
producing the first true milling
machine.[20][21] By 1918, he considered it
"Probably the first milling machine ever
built—certainly the oldest now in
existence […]."[22] However, subsequent
scholars, including Robert S.
Woodbury[23] and others,[24] have
improved upon Roe's early version of the
history and suggest that just as much
credit—in fact, probably more—belongs
to various other inventors, including
Robert Johnson of Middletown,
Connecticut; Captain John H. Hall of the
Harpers Ferry armory; Simeon North of
the Staddle Hill factory in Middletown;
Roswell Lee of the Springfield armory;
and Thomas Blanchard. (Several of the
men mentioned above are sometimes
described on the internet as "the inventor
of the first milling machine" or "the
inventor of interchangeable parts". Such
claims are oversimplified, as these
technologies evolved over time among
many people.)

Peter Baida,[24] citing Edward A.

Battison's article "Eli Whitney and the
Milling Machine," which was published in
the Smithsonian Journal of History in
1966, exemplifies the dispelling of the
"Great Man" image of Whitney by
historians of technology working in the
1950s and 1960s. He quotes Battison as
concluding that "There is no evidence
that Whitney developed or used a true
milling machine." Baida says, "The so-
called Whitney machine of 1818 seems
actually to have been made after
Whitney's death in 1825." Baida cites
Battison's suggestion that the first true
milling machine was made not by
Whitney, but by Robert Johnson of
Middletown.[24]

The late teens of the 19th century were a

pivotal time in the history of machine
tools, as the period of 1814 to 1818 is
also the period during which several
contemporary pioneers (Fox, Murray, and
Roberts) were developing the planer,[25]
and as with the milling machine, the work
being done in various shops was
undocumented for various reasons
(partially because of proprietary secrecy,
and also simply because no one was
taking down records for posterity).

James Nasmyth built a milling machine

very advanced for its time between 1829
and 1831.[26] It was tooled to mill the six
sides of a hex nut that was mounted in a
six-way indexing fixture.

A milling machine built and used in the

shop of Gay & Silver (aka Gay, Silver, &
Co) in the 1830s was influential because
it employed a better method of vertical
positioning than earlier machines. For
example, Whitney's machine (the one
that Roe considered the very first) and
others did not make provision for vertical
travel of the knee. Evidently, the workflow
assumption behind this was that the
machine would be set up with shims,
vise, etc. for a certain part design, and
successive parts did not require vertical
adjustment (or at most would need only
shimming). This indicates that early
thinking about milling machines was as
production and not as toolroom
machines.

In these early years, milling was often

viewed as only a roughing operation to
be followed by finishing with a hand file.
The idea of reducing hand filing was
more important than replacing it.

1840s–1860

A typical Lincoln miller. The configuration was established in the 1850s. (This example was built by Pratt & Whitney,
probably 1870s or 1880s.)

Some of the key men in milling machine

development during this era included
Frederick W. Howe, Francis A. Pratt,
Elisha K. Root, and others. (These same
men during the same era were also busy
developing the state of the art in turret
lathes. Howe's experience at Gay & Silver
in the 1840s acquainted him with early
versions of both machine tools. His
machine tool designs were later built at
Robbins & Lawrence, the Providence Tool
Company, and Brown & Sharpe.) The
most successful milling machine design
to emerge during this era was the Lincoln
miller, which rather than being a specific
make and model of machine tool is truly
a family of tools built by various
companies on a common configuration
over several decades. It took its name
from the first company to put one on the
market, George S. Lincoln & Company
(formerly the Phoenix Iron Works), whose
first one was built in 1855 for the Colt
armory.[27]

During this era there was a continued

blind spot in milling machine design, as
various designers failed to develop a
truly simple and effective means of
providing slide travel in all three of the
archetypal milling axes (X, Y, and Z—or as
they were known in the past, longitudinal,
traverse, and vertical). Vertical
positioning ideas were either absent or
underdeveloped. The Lincoln miller's
spindle could be raised and lowered, but
the original idea behind its positioning
was to be set up in position and then run,
as opposed to being moved frequently
while running. Like a turret lathe, it was a
repetitive-production machine, with each
skilled setup followed by extensive fairly
low skill operation.

1860s

Brown & Sharpe's groundbreaking universal milling machine, 1861

In 1861, Frederick W. Howe, while

working for the Providence Tool
Company, asked Joseph R. Brown of
Brown & Sharpe for a solution to the
problem of milling spirals, such as the
flutes of twist drills. These were usually
filed by hand at the time.[28] (Helical
planing existed but was by no means
common.) Brown designed a "universal
milling machine" that, starting from its
first sale in March 1862, was wildly
successful. It solved the problem of 3-
axis travel (i.e., the axes that we now call
XYZ) much more elegantly than had been
done in the past, and it allowed for the
milling of spirals using an indexing head
fed in coordination with the table feed.
The term "universal" was applied to it
because it was ready for any kind of
work, including toolroom work, and was
not as limited in application as previous
designs. (Howe had designed a
"universal miller" in 1852, but Brown's of
1861 is the one considered a
groundbreaking success.)[28]

Brown also developed and patented

(1864) the design of formed milling
cutters in which successive sharpenings
of the teeth do not disturb the geometry
of the form.[17]

The advances of the 1860s opened the

floodgates and ushered in modern
milling practice.

1870s to World War I

 8 0s to o d a

A typical horizontal milling machine of the early 20th century. Suitable for toolroom, jobbing, or production use.

In these decades, Brown & Sharpe and

the Cincinnati Milling Machine Company
dominated the American milling machine
field. However, hundreds of other firms
also built milling machines at the time,
and many were significant in various
ways. Besides a wide variety of
specialized production machines, the
archetypal multipurpose milling machine
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
was a heavy knee-and-column horizontal-
spindle design with power table feeds,
indexing head, and a stout overarm to
support the arbor. The evolution of
machine design was driven not only by
inventive spirit but also by the constant
evolution of milling cutters that saw
milestone after milestone from 1860
through World War I.[29][30]

World War I and interwar period

Around the end of World War I, machine

tool control advanced in various ways
that laid the groundwork for later CNC
technology. The jig borer popularized the
ideas of coordinate dimensioning
(dimensioning of all locations on the part
from a single reference point); working
routinely in "tenths" (ten-thousandths of
an inch, 0.0001") as an everyday machine
capability; and using the control to go
straight from drawing to part,
circumventing jig-making. In 1920 the
new tracer design of J.C. Shaw was
applied to Keller tracer milling machines
for die sinking via the three dimensional
copying of a template. This made die
sinking faster and easier just as dies
were in higher demand than ever before,
and was very helpful for large steel dies
such as those used to stamp sheets in
automobile manufacturing. Such
machines translated the tracer
movements to input for servos that
worked the machine leadscrews or
hydraulics. They also spurred the
development of antibacklash leadscrew
nuts. All of the above concepts were new
in the 1920s but became routine in the
NC/CNC era. By the 1930s, incredibly
large and advanced milling machines
existed, such as the Cincinnati Hydro-Tel,
that presaged today's CNC mills in every
respect except for CNC control itself.

Bridgeport milling machine

In 1936, Rudolph Bannow (1897–1962)

conceived of a major improvement to the
milling machine.[31] His company
commenced manufacturing a new knee-
and-column vertical mill in 1938. This
was the Bridgeport milling machine,
often called a ram-type or turret-type mill
because its head has sliding-ram and
rotating-turret mounting. The machine
became so popular that many other
manufacturers created copies and
variants. Furthermore, its name came to
connote any such variant. The Bridgeport
offered enduring advantages over
previous models. It was small enough,
light enough, and affordable enough to
be a practical acquisition for even the
smallest machine shop businesses, yet it
was also smartly designed, versatile,
well-built, and rigid. Its various directions
of sliding and pivoting movement
allowed the head to approach the work
from any angle. The Bridgeport's design
became the dominant form for manual
milling machines used by several
generations of small- and medium-
enterprise machinists. By the 1980s an
estimated quarter-million Bridgeport
milling machines had been built,[31] and
they (and their clones) are still being
produced today.

1940s–1970s

By 1940, automation via cams, such as in

screw machines and automatic
chuckers, had already been very well
developed for decades. Beginning in the
1930s, ideas involving servomechanisms
had been in the air, but it was especially
during and immediately after World War
II that they began to germinate (see also
Numerical control > History). These were
soon combined with the emerging
technology of digital computers. This
technological development milieu,
spanning from the immediate pre–World
War II period into the 1950s, was
powered by the military capital
expenditures that pursued contemporary
advancements in the directing of gun and
rocket artillery and in missile guidance—
other applications in which humans
wished to control the
kinematics/dynamics of large machines
quickly, precisely, and automatically.
Sufficient R&D spending probably would
not have happened within the machine
tool industry alone; but it was for the
latter applications that the will and ability
to spend was available. Once the
development was underway, it was
eagerly applied to machine tool control in
one of the many post-WWII instances of
technology transfer.

In 1952, numerical control reached the

developmental stage of laboratory reality.
The first NC machine tool was a
Cincinnati Hydrotel milling machine
retrofitted with a scratch-built NC control
unit. It was reported in Scientific
American,[32] just as another
groundbreaking milling machine, the
Brown & Sharpe universal, had been in
1862.

During the 1950s, numerical control

moved slowly from the laboratory into
commercial service. For its first decade,
it had rather limited impact outside of
aerospace work. But during the 1960s
and 1970s, NC evolved into CNC, data
storage and input media evolved,
computer processing power and memory
capacity steadily increased, and NC and
CNC machine tools gradually
disseminated from an environment of
huge corporations and mainly aerospace
work to the level of medium-sized
corporations and a wide variety of
products. NC and CNC's drastic
advancement of machine tool control
deeply transformed the culture of
manufacturing.[33] The details (which are
beyond the scope of this article) have
evolved immensely with every passing
decade.

1980s–present

Computers and CNC machine tools

continue to develop rapidly. The personal
computer revolution has a great impact
on this development. By the late 1980s
small machine shops had desktop
computers and CNC machine tools. Soon
after, hobbyists, artists, and designers
began obtaining CNC mills and lathes.
Manufacturers have started producing
economically priced CNCs machines
small enough to sit on a desktop which
can cut at high resolution materials
softer than stainless steel. They can be
used to make anything from jewelry to
printed circuit boards to gun parts, even
fine art.

Standards
National and international standards are
used to standardize the definitions,
environmental requirements, and test
methods used for milling. Selection of
the standard to be used is an agreement
between the supplier and the user and
has some significance in the design of
the mill. In the United States, ASME has
developed the standards B5.45-1972
Milling Machines and B94.19-1997 Milling
Cutters and End Mills.

General tolerances include: +/-0.005" for

local tolerances across most geometries,
+/-0.010" for plastics with variation
depending on the size of the part, 0.030"
minimum wall thickness for metals, and
0.060" minimum wall thickness for
plastics.[34]

See also
Arbor milling
CNC router
Cryomilling
Electrical discharge machining
Milling cutter
Millwork
Multiaxis machining
Photochemical machining
Printed circuit board milling
Router (woodworking)
3D printing

References
References

Notes

1. Brown & Sharpe 1914, p. 7.

2. CMMC 1922, p. 122.
3. Usher 1896, p. 142.
4. CMMC 1922, pp. 125–127.
5. "How to use a Milling Machine" (http://ww
w.americanmachinetools.com/how_to_us
e_a_milling_machine.htm) . American
Machine Tools Co.
6. Encyclopædia Britannica 2011
7. Currently the term "miller" refers to
machines built when that term was
current, as with "phonograph" and
"horseless carriage."
8. Jankowski, Tomasz; Piórkowski, Paweł;
Skoczyński, Wacław (October 2016). "The
roundness deviation measurement of
vertical center Haas Mini Mill" (https://dx.
doi.org/10.17814/mechanik.2016.10.33
7) . Mechanik (10): 1310–1311.
doi:10.17814/mechanik.2016.10.337 (htt
ps://doi.org/10.17814%2Fmechanik.2016.
10.337) . ISSN 0025-6552 (https://www.w
orldcat.org/issn/0025-6552) .
 9. Kramer, Thomas R. (1992). "Pocket
Milling with Tool Engagement Detection".
Journal of Manufacturing Systems. 11
(2): 112–123. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.57.3646
(https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/su
mmary?doi=10.1.1.57.3646) .
doi:10.1016/0278-6125(92)90042-E (http
s://doi.org/10.1016%2F0278-6125%289
2%2990042-E) .
10. Held, Martin (1991). "A geometry-based
investigation of the tool path generation
for zigzag pocket machining". The Visual
Computer. 7 (5–6): 296–308.
doi:10.1007/BF01905694 (https://doi.org/
10.1007%2FBF01905694) .
S2CID 1057336 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:1057336) .
11. Choy, H.S.; Chan, K.W. (February 2003). "A
corner-looping based tool path for pocket
milling". Computer-Aided Design. 35 (2):
155–166. doi:10.1016/S0010-
4485(02)00049-0 (https://doi.org/10.101
6%2FS0010-4485%2802%2900049-0) .
12. Hansen, Allan; Arbab, Farhad (April 1992).
"An algorithm for generating NC tool
paths for arbitrarily shaped pockets with
islands". ACM Transactions on Graphics.
11 (2): 152–182.
doi:10.1145/130826.130832 (https://doi.
org/10.1145%2F130826.130832) .
S2CID 2388266 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:2388266) .
13. Jeong, J.; Kim, K. (1998). "Tool Path
Generation for Machining Free-Form
Pockets Voronoi Diagrams". The
International Journal of Advanced
Manufacturing Technology. 14 (12): 876–
881. doi:10.1007/BF01179076 (https://do
i.org/10.1007%2FBF01179076) .
S2CID 109784396 (https://api.semanticsc
holar.org/CorpusID:109784396) .
14. Persson, H. (May 1978). "NC machining of
arbitrarily shaped pockets". Computer-
Aided Design. 10 (3): 169–174.
doi:10.1016/0010-4485(78)90141-0 (http
s://doi.org/10.1016%2F0010-4485%287
8%2990141-0) .
15. Bieterman, Michael B.; Sandstrom, Donald
R. (Nov 11, 2003). "A Curvilinear Tool-Path
Method for Pocket Machining". Journal of
Manufacturing Science and Engineering.
125 (4): 709–715. doi:10.1115/1.1596579
(https://doi.org/10.1115%2F1.1596579) .
16. Woodbury 1972, p. 23.
17. Roe 1916, p. 206 (https://archive.org/deta
ils/englishandameri01roegoog/page/n2
78) .
18. Radzevich, Stephen P. (2012-04-02).
Dudley's Handbook of Practical Gear
Design and Manufacture, Second Edition
(https://books.google.com/books?id=mL
UclpsfTeQC&pg=PA694) . CRC Press.
p. 694. ISBN 978-1-4398-6601-6.
19. Roberts, Kenneth D., and Snowden Taylor.
Eli Terry and the Connecticut Shelf Clock.
Ken Roberts Publishing, 1994.
20. Woodbury 1972, p. 17.
21. Roe 1916, caption of figure facing p. 142
(https://archive.org/details/englishandam
eri01roegoog/page/n194) .
22. Roe 1916, p. 309 (https://archive.org/deta
ils/mechanicalequip00roegoog/page/n3
33)
23. Woodbury 1972, pp. 16–26.
24. Baida 1987
25. Roe 1916, Chapter V: Inventors of the
Planer, pp. 50–62 (https://archive.org/det
ails/englishandameri01roegoog/page/n9
2) .
26. Woodbury 1972, pp. 24–26.
 27. Roe 1916, p. 165 (https://archive.org/deta
ils/englishandameri01roegoog/page/n2
23) .
28. Roe 1916, pp. 208–209 (https://archive.or
g/details/englishandameri01roegoog/pag
e/n280) .
29. Woodbury 1972, pp. 51–55.
30. Woodbury 1972, pp. 79–81.
31. American Precision Museum 1992.
32. Pease 1952
33. Noble 1984, throughout.
34. "Design Guide: CNC Machining" (https://c
dn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/340051/Design_G
uides/Xometry_DesignGuide_CNCMachini
ng.pdf) (PDF). xometry.com.

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Usher, John T. (1896). The Modern
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ttps://archive.org/details/treatiseonmillin0
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Woodbury, Robert S. (1972) [1960], History
of the Milling Machine. In Studies in the
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262-73033-4, LCCN 72006354 (https://lccn.
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Further reading

Hounshell, David A. (1984), From the

American System to Mass Production,
1800–1932: The Development of
Manufacturing Technology in the United
States, Baltimore, Maryland: Johns
Hopkins University Press, ISBN 978-0-
8018-2975-8, LCCN 83016269 (https://
lccn.loc.gov/83016269) ,
OCLC 1104810110 (https://www.world
cat.org/oclc/1104810110)
Rolt, L. T. C. (1965), A Short History of
Machine Tools (https://books.google.c
om/books/about/A_short_history_of_
machine_tools.html?id=1dhSAAAAMA
AJ) , Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA:
MIT Press, OCLC 250074 (https://www.
worldcat.org/oclc/250074) . Co-
edition published as Rolt, L. T. C.
(1965), Tools for the Job: a Short
History of Machine Tools, London: B. T.
Batsford, LCCN 65080822 (https://lcc
n.loc.gov/65080822) .
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