Presented research works deal with the milling of mold in composites materials, considering surface roughness and plan of procedure. Aeronautical structure parts could be produced by LCM (Liquid Composite Molding) processes. These processes induce high operating temperature for mold which is harmful for the dimensional quality of manufactured parts. In order to solve this problem, material with low heat elongation or with the same behavior as injected resin should be used for the mold. Thus, a composite material (Hextool ™) is proposed to replace conventional metallic molds. The milling operation produces the final dimensions of the tool and determines the time of manual polishing operation to reach the required arithmetic roughness. This work offers two ways of improvement through the study of micro-geometric surface finishing operation by cutting tool and then abrasive tool. The first way highlights the appearance of a minimum reachable value of roughness during machining with a cutting tool. The analysis of this phenomenon ensures to give an optimal value of radial depth of cut. Indeed, in this case, the best ratio surface quality / machining time is achieved. The second ensures to define an abrasive tool usable on a CNC machine tool. The feasibility of this operation and capabilities of this innovative technology are discussed. Finally, the choice of tools, machining strategy and machine tool are discussed and lead to the proposal of a reference process planning for composite molds roughing and finishing.
