How are Sherline CNC vertical mills, are they to light duty for making parts for steam engine?

I bought one and sent it back before I tried it. It was to light duty for what I wanted it for, If you want to mill larger metal and or steel, it may not have the power to work faster than a larger machine.

I think I'm gonna go with a Grizzly vertical mill instead. Thanks for your input.

Originally posted by cncman2
I think I'm gonna go with a Grizzly vertical mill instead. Thanks for your input.

Save a few hundred bucks and get the exact same mill from homier.com with an R-8 spindle.........only its red.

I wish I had known of the homier mini mill, before I bought a Grizzly

Sherline is much to flimsy for milling anything other than moderately small sized Al. stock.
The cast Iron mini mills are much more stable and dependable.

I have both the Sherline Mill and Lathe, and I machine Grade 5 titanium with both. If you plan to hog lots of material in one pass, the Sherline will not hold up, but regualr cuts, not a problem. I just finished converting my Mill to CNC, and am very happy with the results.

Well, I opted to get something that didnt use such proprietary collets and accessories, because i didnt want to be forced to buy only the collets, ect. ,that Sherline has to offer.

I was going to purchase one myself, some time ago.
But after doing some research and seeing how flimsy looking the column assembly looks, I decided to go with something a little more rigid, and chose the Grizzly cast iron mill versus the practically all Aluminum Sherline.

But I have heard good things about them from a few people. But the grumbles far outway the highlights of them.

Good points about buying ONLY sherline tooling!!
That is the only real drawback I have, thought about upgrading to a larger unit, but the sherline fits my projects fine.