Subject: Sherline parallels

From: [email-masked] (Randy Gordon-Gilmore)
Date: 10 Dec 1996 10:52:25 GMT

Well, not parallels marketed by Sherline!  

I recently bought a Sherline mill with some attachments from Jim Harvey (fast, 
friendly service but what happened to the T-nuts, Jim? :-)  The mill vice has 
jaws that are only 1" deep, and I could not find any parallel sets that didn't 
go all the way up to 1-7/8", and the sets cost a good fraction of what the mill 
did!

So I got to looking in the MSC catalog, and among all the fluff :-) saw several 
pages of ground steel stock.  Compared to parallels, it is dirt cheap, so I 
bought some Staratt oil-hardening stock in 1/8" thick, and 1/4" to 7/8" 
thickness by 1/8's.

I did not expect it to be ground "to size", but figured that it would be even 
enough so that I could selectively cut a couple of 6" pieces from each 18" 
stock length.  When the steel arrived, I was pleasantly surprised to find that 
the parallelism of each piece along the width was well within .0005"!  I 
hacksawed the steel in three, deburred the edges, and have some nice "hobby 
quality" parallels for my Sherline!

One caveat is, that the squareness of the ground stock is not as good as "real" 
parallels.  I set up pairs of the "parallels" on the magnetic chuck of the 
surface grinder at work, sitting on their 1/8" faces, and found that the upper 
edges would converge/diverge by a few thou.  Just enough to be able to rock one 
up on a corner before it touched the other.  But, again, more than good enough 
for the model railroading work for which I am using the mill.

Randy
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[email-masked] ,----.___________  _______________  __________________
Randy Gordon-Gilmore  // =   =  === ==  || ==    == == = || == == ==  =  == =|
Benicia, CA, USA     /-O==O------------o==o-------------o==o------------o==o-'
                                  -=CB&Q 9900 "Pioneer Zephyr"=-

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From: Michael Latcha <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 1996 08:37:32 -0500

I took an even cheaper approach, sort of following Briney's advice in his
book.  Took some 3/8"x2 1/2" aluminum bar stock, cut off a piece 3" long,
then cut that piece lengthwise in half.  Flycut the flats of both pieces
until parallel (just clean-up cuts), then mated them together in the vice,
with lots of indicating, to clean up the other surfaces.  In about an hour
I ended up with a set of aluminum parallels that were as accurate as the
Sherline milling column, as well as lots of good experience indicating
surfaces true before cutting.... 

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