This paper presents a study of the prediction of cutting force when surface milling with a face milling tool. On the basis of inheriting a number of theoretical studies on cutting force modeling published, this study has applied to predict the cutting force when milling 40Cr steel with a face milling tool. The results show that the deviation of predicted cutting force compared to the test is about 15.7%, and compared to the predicted value using regression model is about 9.9%, while the cutting force predicted using regression model deviates from the test result of 9.6%. At the same time, development directions for further studies are also mentioned in this paper