The written pass
A mill ticket is a sequence. We do not “session” a golfer through a ladder of heads. We clamp one face, cut what we said we would cut, and stop when the numbers match the ticket.
01 · alloy and thickness
Before CAM, Reed sparks the cavity and mics the face at three spots. 17-4 and 304 mill differently; a chrome-plated game-improvement face mills like a lie. If remaining thickness is already thin from a prior recut or a rust pit, we veto. Paying us to mill a head into a crack is a poor use of Olive Street electricity.
02 · vise and origin
We pick up the hitting window, not the ferrule. A head that sits pretty in a bending machine can sit drunk in a mill vise. Soft jaws, a score-line as a visual, then an indicator sweep. CAM origin is the high point of the existing face, because we are removing glaze, not inventing a new loft.
03 · facing pass
Square-end carbide, climb direction, stepover in the 0.30–0.40 mm band on 17-4. Chatter is a failure, not a texture. If the flute sings, Keiko drops feed, not pride. We leave scallop height low enough that a ball does not see a washboard. A ball-nose “for looks” is how you mill a face that launches left on Tuesdays.
04 · groove walls
Groove work is a smaller cutter and a slower brain. We restore wall angle and land width to the ticket, then break the corner just enough that it does not chip on a cart-path bounce. A razor with no break looks vicious in a photo and fails in three rounds of wet rye.
05 · Ra and the soaked collar
Nia runs the Ra sled across the window and writes the band on the ticket. Then the ugly tray: wet clippings, five balls, loupe. If the edge rolled, we recut. If it held, you get the head back with a paper that lists alloy, Ra, land, and the date. Keep that paper. The next mill, if there is one, starts from it.
Sit on the rubber, drink the bad coffee, or walk Olive for twenty minutes. We will not make you hit 80 balls into a net so the visit feels like a fitting. The cutter is the work. When it stops, you look through the loupe with us. That is the review. Bring the ball you actually play; a range rock tells the wet table a different story.