The 1/2 cutter is to profile the outer perimeter of my part which is roughly 11"x11". The 1/4 is for my inner slot milling/pocketing. The pockets are narrow. just barley larger than the 1/4 bit. The plate stock I'm working is 6061 aluminum about 3/4 inch thick. with the exception of the inner pocketing, its mostly rectangular movement being done.
Its pretty simple 2.5D stuff really, I'm just a little lost on where to start with the feeding speeds and depth per pass since I'm new to this. Even a conservative suggestion would be great because I could always bump the speed up later if its seems to be puring away. I just don't want to feed to fast or plunge too quickly and crash. Should I be as cautious as I am about or should I just see what happens?
Also, I've been doing some reading, can somebody enlighten me as to what SFM is as well as Doc? Seems like their should be some standard of how much stock should get removed per minute depending on various factors. Am I correct in assuming this? and if so, where do I find a chart with this data in it for various materials?