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The unsafe zone in machining is a region of the parameter space where steady-state cutting operations may switch to regenerative chatter for certain perturbations, and vice versa. In the case of milling processes, this phenomenon is related to the existence of an unstable quasi-periodic oscillation, the in-sets of which limit the basin of attraction of the stable periodic motion that corresponds to the chatter-free cutting process. The mathematical model is a system of time-periodic nonlinear delay differential equations. It is studied by means of a nonlinear extension of the semidiscretization method, which enables the estimation of the parameter ranges where the unsafe (also called bistable) zones appear. The theoretical results are checked with thorough experimental work: first, step-by-step parameter variations are adapted to identify hysteresis loops, then harmonic burst excitations are used to estimate the extents of the unsafe zones. The hysteresis loops are accurately distinguished from the dynamic bifurcation phenomenon that is related to the dynamic effect of slowly varying parameters. The experimental results confirm the existence of the bistable parameter regions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Nonlinear dynamics of delay systems'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]