Thanks for the responses. The machien I am running this part on is an Atrump B5AC with a Centroid M400 control with AC servos motors. Its 4 or 5 years old. I wont discount what you are saying about machine performance causing the surface issues.

I have the step over set for 0.020". I am trying to find a balance between time and surface smoothness. I can live with a textured surface more than I can live with an hours worth of time surfacing the part to get it smooth.

My problem with visual mill is I just dont have the experience needed to tackle a part like this. I keep banging away at it, but I am missing something. When I create a roughing pass, the tool cuts air all the way around the stock before it starts cutting the stock. I have tried all the various settings but I dont get what I want.I thik I have figured out that I need some sort of containment bounding region to force the tool to cut the stock but im not sure.

I need to try and keep the machining time down to about 25-30 min for the entire part.

Bill