PSA: hand-grinding a boring bar bit got me close, but the bench grinder with the right rest cut my chatter in half
Last week I had to bore out some 6061 bushings on my little lathe and I tried hand-holding the HSS blank against the wheel, which gave me a wobbly edge and chatter you could hear in the next room. Then I bolted on the tool rest and set it to about 8 degrees, and the same bit cut smooth on the first pass. I'm not saying hand grinding never works, plenty of old timers do it fine, but for someone like me the rest took the guesswork out. What angles are you all running for general boring on aluminum?
Honestly the rest is nice but I'm not sold that it's the whole story, chatter comes and goes for a dozen reasons and a fresh edge can feel like magic one day and do nothing the next. 8 degrees is fine for aluminum, maybe a touch more back rake and a small nose radius. Just don't expect the same angle to save you on steel.