Anyone have anything good or bad to say about the sherline mills and lathes? Just looking to hear some opinions. Specifically looking for a small format setup. Found a good deal but have never dealt with the product, but always heard good things.
They are great for what they are, small. Otherwise you wont find a better supported machine.
There are many mods. All upgrades (or most all) will work on every machine. Cheap tooling. Very forgiving to learn on. Will break the bit and junk the piece at most, well besides the pride thing. At the same time, with patience even larger items can get machined very well. It is easy to go to.
Thanks for the input. About to pickup a full package deal from a local guy. Has pretty much everything. Any tips on finding an aftermarket dro for the lathe? It's the 24" bed version.
If so forget the Dro's. If manual there are a few approaches, large digital calipers mounted to the axis?
1 thing nice (or bad depending on your view) about the Sherlines is that you wont machine too much off at 1 pass LOL. You will have time to measure your piece. This is if machining metals. Plastic and woods are machined fast with it.
I come here often in defense of the mighty Sherline. I also try to warn people of what it isnt, big or powerful. Yet it is extremely accurate if just the minimal maintenance and prep are done. Especially for a first timer. It will leave you wanting more quickly if you have larger projects. At no time would I want to be without it though. I use it on numerous occasions because it is simple to set up, it will do most of what I need on every metal I put in it, just not quickly.
It makes experimenting on the cheap, fun. I have configured both my Sherline mill and lathe in many different ways. A 4th (with Sherlines rotary table) in 2 different axis' on the mill. I have put a milling table on an extended lathe giving it a 13" bed for future gang tooling ( these were extra parts after an A2Z extension of the mill). I built an extruder head for the mill and made a 3D printer running on Mach3. I have been thinking of using the rotary table as a turret tool changer for the lathe. The list is as long as your imagination.
Nice! The mill is 4 axis cnc and the lathe is manual. The dro would be more for the lathe until I get good enough to convert it to cnc. Really I'm using both thee for trainers since a crash on these cost less time and money to repair if it happens. After I become fluent in making parts on both I'm jumping to my sieg x3 cnc and prolight cnc slant lathe. Hands on time with minimal risk to equipment is what I'm after.
Just buy the CNC mounting kit for the lathe, source the steppers elsewhere. Use the same controller for both machines. You will enjoy learning on it. Mostly just stalling the steppers, gumming up the flutes and breaking an end mill is the issue. Your other machines should be pretty forgiving too but they will machine themselves very quickly if something was wrong.
question. why would you want to buy the little toy when you already have a cnc mill and cnc lathe? your profile says you were/are a 5/3 axis machinist so i don't get the training spiel, why waste your time "training" on those little machines instead of what you intend to run. a crash isn't going to ruin them. didn't you also convert a huge router to cnc already? is it collecting dust because you are afraid to crash it too?
Sherline mill and lathe
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