Hello,

Guess what I discovered at work? It is the neatest thing. In some bygone day where the lab had extra funding, a Sherline mill and lathe were purchased, along with most of the acessories they sell (including the book that the owner published, and the "Tabletop Machining" handbook). It's pretty much completely unused, and I can practice with it. After work for the past week I've been familiarizing myself with it; for now I've just been learning to get the hang of the hold-down acessories, and milling scrap aluminum in pretty much random fashions.

I managed to shear one of the lugs that fits into the grooves in the table (the threaded nut with the square flange that the hold-down acessories screw into). I didn't think I torqued it all that much, so I called Sherline and asked what the max torque was on that piece. I didn't expect anyone to know, but the tech support guy told me 18 oz-in, and also suspected that the piece I sheared was defective and sent me a new one. I'm wondering if he just mis-spoke and really meant 18 in-lbs; 18 oz-in is barely even finger tight. I have a small torque wrench, but it doesn't even go down that far. Can anyone help me here?

I don't know what the official torque is for those, but I break those t-nuts occasionally. Since they sell replacements in packs of 10 I assume it is not an uncommon problem.

Right Derek, I broke one 1/2" T-bolt on my shoptask, although not entirely apart....apparently it WAS defective. One could see upon inspection that there was a weak area where the bolt head and shank met. It may have gone on for much more use but I think I had it in the slot at a slight angle causing uneven pressure on the bolthead flanges...and revealing the defect.

BTW. Ubarch...Nice find!