Radius material setup

[MikeA]

I am milling some circular parts. Our material blank is pre-conformed close to the finish part to minimize material waste. We currently are just letting the tool cut air in the roughing pass where there is no material. I have drawn the material blank in a solid , can I use this in the material job set up somehow so that in the roughing stage of machining we are not cutting air, and expedite the tool path? Or do I need to use a different approach to set boundries?

[Matt Berube]

what type of toolpath is it ?

sounds like adding a boundary of some sort will make all the difference. I wouldn't use the solid to define stock. I am not sure if that option exists or not. a simple 2-d boundary at any height should do it.

[MikeA]

Matt, thanks for the response. The toolpath is a flowline. We run a roughing toolpath first, but if you can picture the rough material before machining is stair stepped and the program wants to interpert it as being a full blank. It is not a major issue, but I am trying to cut down on machine time. My other thought would be to trick MC with using two finish toolpaths, the first being with a larger material left dimension and more aggresive stepover.