The range of surface roughnesses, and particularly the minimum roughnesses, achievable mainly with cemented carbide but also with single crystal diamond round nosed turning and facing inserts, has been experimentally studied, machining aluminium on engineering and precision lathes. Insert edge sharpness and roughness measurements and characteristic variations with feed rate of machined surface profile are presented. When machine tool limits are avoided, Rz values down to 0.02 times the insert edge radii have been obtained.
