Subject: Re: Sherline

From: [email-masked] (Charles Gallo)
Date: 12 Sep 96 20:16:39 -0700

David,
	Guess what? Sherlines NEWEST accessory is a bolt on sacrficial top 
plate for their Mill!!

Charlie

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From: [email-masked] (Ron Ginger)
Date: Thu, 12 Sep 1996 18:21:44 LOCAL

The owner of Sherline has been at the last several NAMES shows with a nice 
display. He turns an aluminum bar with chips bigger than I do on my 11"x48" 
Rockwell. He offers visitors to turn the crank and see if they can stall the 
thing. It is amazing.

Now, I agree with all the others, I dont do that on my Sherline. But it WILL 
take cuts a lot heavier than have been described here, and likely wont hurt 
the machine.

I also strongly agree that you must have plans for work sized to the tool. Ive 
seen some rigs to make table extensions, headstock risers, etc. If thats your 
need, buy a bigger machine.

I had a Unimat 3 and was lucky enough to sell it and buy the Sherline. Even 
though the Unimat is about the same size its power is miniscule compared to 
the Sherline.

now if I just had time to make something with my Sherline....

Ron Ginger
my signature is http://www.ultranet.com/~ginger

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From: [email-masked](J.A.Harvey)
Date: 13 Sep 1996 18:17:13 GMT

In <[email-masked]>
Michael Latcha <[email-masked]> writes: 
>
>
>Amen, Ron.  About the only accessory that SHERLINE does not offer is 
>extra time.  Probably be too expensive for us anyway.  Sigh...
Dear Dr. Mike:

Don't tell SHERLINE about this, but I will be happy to sell you all the
extra time you need at the bargain price of $10.00 per day. Please send
a certified check in the proper amount to me ( orders over $1000.00
will receive the latest SHERLINE price sheet at no charge!)

Hey, it's better than " PAY OFF ALL YOUR BILLS" right?

Jim Harvey
[email-masked]
http://hre.com/

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From: Don Stauffer <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 1996 08:49:36 -0500

Ron Ginger wrote:
>snip
> snip

I have the headstock riser and extended toolpost.  They are extremely rugged (the 
headstock riser is solid aluminum) and work well.  I do not keep them in place, but when I 
need to make a larger diameter item, they are quick to insert.  If your needs are for 
something 5" or less, I think the Sherline is super.
-- 
Don Stauffer in Minneapolis

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From: Michael Latcha <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 1996 10:38:44 -0400

Jim:

A very tempting offer, and I am sorry to hear that business is so poor
that you have so much extra time on your hands that you are willing to
sell it for so little, but I have just recently sunk all my extra cash
into this really cool bridge that I scored for an unbelieveable price... 

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael A. Latcha, PhD                     VOICE: (810) 370-2203
Associate Professor                        FAX:   (810) 370-4261
Department of Mechanical Engineering       Email: [email-masked]
Oakland University
Rochester MI 48309-4401

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From: [email-masked] (Robert Nichols)
Date: Sun, 15 Sep 1996 21:59:52 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>,
Ron Ginger <[email-masked]> wrote:
:The owner of Sherline has been at the last several NAMES shows with a nice 
:display. He turns an aluminum bar with chips bigger than I do on my 11"x48" 
:Rockwell. He offers visitors to turn the crank and see if they can stall the 
:thing. It is amazing.

I can believe that.  The DC motor on the Sherline is a real gem.  The
controller appears to use the PM motor's back EMF as a feedback signal
to control the applied power.  That means that the motor still has its
full torque available, even at the lowest speed.

I've had my Sherline mill (5400) for a couple of weeks now, and my only
gripes are pretty minor:

 1. The T slots in the table are shallow, and the nuts project above the
    table surface.  That means that every time I make a fixture intended
    to bolt directly to the table, I have to counterbore the bolt holes.
    Yes, I could use hold-down clamps instead, but for a fixture that's
    only going to be used in one position it's a lot simpler just to
    drill holes above the table slots.

 2. Speaking of hold-down clamps, I'm not particularly impressed with
    the arrangement of the strap clamps in the hold down set (P/N 3012).
    I made some T-head bolts to use in place of the provided cap screws
    and T-nuts so that I don't have to select a bolt length and set of
    washers accurate within about 1/16" to get decent thread engagement
    without the ends of the screws digging into the bottom of the T
    slots.  Now I just have to select bolts that aren't so long as to
    interfere with the milling head.

 3. When set up as a vertical mill with the full-height column, you
    can't get a miniature milling cutter in a collet all the way down to
    the table.  Fortunately, I have the "Horizontal Milling Column
    Conversion," so I can just remove the 2" spacer block when I run
    into that problem, but it's a bit of a nuisance.  (Using the 3/8"
    end mill holder, P/N 3079, avoids that problem, but I have only
    miniature cutters at the moment.)

 4. Speaking of minature milling cutters, the draw bolt for the milling
    collet set needs to be bored out so that a double-ended end mill can
    be seated to the proper depth.  I drilled mine 13/64" to a depth of
    1/2" so that I can use double-ended mills up to 3/16" dia.  It seems
    that might have been intended.  Else, why would that draw bolt be
    5/16" dia. while all the other accessories use a 1/4" draw bolt?

 5. When rotating the head, the location of the set screw means that the
    Allen wrench obscures your view of the degree scale and index mark.

 6. It takes a while to get over your fear of clamping work to the
    aluminum table.

 7. That sucker is *BLACK*, and absorbs light like a sponge.  When I
    set it up in my workshop, the fluorescent lights groaned in agony,
    and one even popped its ballast in protest.  My neighbors now refer
    to my house as "the black hole" because it sucks up all the light
    within a 2-block radius.

As I said, that's all fairly minor or easily correctable stuff.  Overall
it's a damn nice machine.

-- 
Bob Nichols         [email-masked]
Finger [email-masked] for PGP public key.
PGP public key 1024/9A9C7955
Key fingerprint = 2F E5 82 F8 5D 06 A2 59  20 65 44 68 87 EC A7 D7

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From: [email-masked] (BILLG63475)
Date: 16 Sep 1996 14:11:46 -0400

>    drill holes above the table slots.

I used to have this same problem until i just took several of the t-nuts
and ground the necessary amount off of the top. Now the only problem is
keeping those nuts separated from the one that are not modified.

I have also modified one of the boring bar holders on the lathe to
acconodate the Dremel flex shaft.  Live tooling if you will. I have used
it many times to cut hardened shafts and gears  using a tuffgrind cutoff
wheel.

Bill

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From: [email-masked] (Ken Knaell)
Date: 20 Sep 1996 18:00:12 -0400

>it many times to cut hardened shafts and gears  using a tuffgrind cutoff

I was looking at an advertisement for the Dremel flex shaft the
other day and wondered how it would compare to the normal Dremel
tool for tool post purposes.  My experiences with very cheap
flex shaft tools in the past is that the vibration of the flex
cable turning inside the outer sheath was very objectionable for
hand use.  Do their handpieces have endplay in the spindle? It
would be nice if they came apart for cleaning and if their
was a preload adjustment for the bearings.  If the handpieces are
well made they might be useful many places where a small high
speed spindle was needed.  I'll bet they have a square drive
in the cable end to accept a square end crushed into the cable
like automobile speedometer cables do.  Dremel also makes a
high torque version with a heavier motor apparently.

ken
bethesda, md