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The increasing drive for productivity improvements and consistent part dimensionality in aerospace structures has lead to the advent of machined monolithic parts. High speed machining technology employed affords the manufacture of thin-walled parts from single billets of material, resulting in the removal of approximately 85% of the initial workpiece material. With thin-walled monolithic parts come the increased propensity for workpiece distortion and few arresting mechanisms for crack propagation, largely due to potentially unfavorable residual stress states. These imposed states of stress can be a result of the machining conditions used (e.g., feeds, speeds and cutter geometry). A general method is presented to model the residual stress state induced by metal cutting operations which takes into account workpiece thermo-mechanical properties, cutter geometry and process parameters. In this paper the model is specifically applied to Al7050.