Manual milling is the grandfather of subtractive machining processes, having been used in the industry since 1818. An operator must move a cutting tool through a workpiece by hand (through turning dials) to remove material and create the final part. The manual nature allows the operator to feel the feedback of the process in their hand and adjust parameters on the fly to compensate. Because the movement of the tool is controlled by hand, the complexity of the part is limited by the skill of the operator and the complexity of their fixturing
