On Aligning the Vertical Bed of Sherline Mill

[Karl A]

Aaron,

Thank you for the link to the set of machinist squares at Little Machine Shop, and summarizing your experience with them. You answered an unasked question I had: whether having multiple sizes is useful. The squareness tolerance on the squares is quite good, especially for the price.

I am endeavoring to put together a machining kit, that contains the necessary tools to machine what I am going to machine. I am a bit of a minimalist; I want to minimize the number and size of tools that I buy and have. I also appreciate high quality.

I anticipate that most of my machining will be in support of other hobbies, namely chocolate-making, landscape and social-event photography, and rocketry. Sometimes, I will make parts that will need to fit into an existing device -- which requires good metrology. I have already added shaft seals and better bearings to the wheels of a chocolate refiner (a wheel mill).

Are you willing to share the brand and model of the what vise that you have? Two-inch screwless vises with slots for holders seem to be relatively rare. I have not found a Vertex one. I found Interstate and Gibralter vises at MSC Direct.

I see that your location is Ukiah. I grew up in Willits, and I have a house near Willits. I was there from mid-March to end of May, while my employer was closed for COVID-19.

Karl

 

[Aaron_W]

I grew up in the East Bay, and still have family there. I moved around quite a bit from 1998 to 2012, when we moved here and are staying put. I used to go to the Boy Scout camp at the lake outside of Willits when I was a kid.


You can go crazy buying tooling, as you have seen it can get very expensive quickly. There is a big leap in price as you go from pretty accurate to very accurate to extremely accurate. Quality is good, but it is easy to pay for accuracy well beyond your needs. You are going to find there are a lot of things you are going to want upfront. Figuring out where you can scrimp a little will help you stretch the budget. I bought that square set, because it was cheap, and I saw some decent reviews. I've stayed with it because it has been good enough and I have other things to spend my money on. A lot of the import tools are cheap and adequate. You can get a basic set dial indicator, dial test indicator, calipers, and a micrometer that are ok, for the price of one good dial indicator or caliper. I started with cheap ones because I couldn't get everything at once buying good name brands, but I needed something to get started with. Over time I've bought better quality, some used, some new. The cheap stuff is cheap enough and still works decently so I don't feel it was money wasted. Some people keep using the cheap tools, and save the more expensive ones for when they need that extra accuracy. Less chance of breaking the good ones. I kind of like using the good ones once I've got them. For some things of course it makes sense to buy something really good the first time, particularly if a budget item is not so cheap or that decent. Probably one of the biggest draw backs to cheap tools is their inconsistency, you can get one that is excellent and then get another that is very poor. This is something I like about Little Machine Shop, they seem to take some care into what they stock, and have a reputation for good customer service, although I haven't had to test that. I needed some things when LMS was shut down for Covid-19 and have also found All Industrial Tools to be another vendor who offers decent budget stuff as well as the higher end stuff. Both are located in Southern California so shipping to this end of the state is pretty fast.


Unfortunately I can't tell you who made my vise, it is a generic 2" screwless vice I got off of ebay several years ago, so I don't even have the seller in my history anymore since it only goes back about 2 years. When I bought it I just surfed ebay until I found one with a slot instead of the more common series of holes. They really are not milling vices, but they work well on these small machines. From what I've seen / heard from others is most of them are pretty good. You can search under a couple of names, tool makers vise, grinding vise, screwless vise, most run $50-100. Do read carefully though because you can get them in sizes from 1" wide to 5"or 6" and they look identical in a photo. The 2" size fits the Sherline mill well, the 1" ones can be useful for tiny parts, and can be held in the larger vise. I think the vast majority are made in China or India.


As far as using these machines in support of your hobbies, good luck with that. I also have a 4400 lathe and the 5400 mill. I bought them to make model parts. I was sure they would be all I needed. Well 4 years on and they have invited some bigger friends to come and stay with us and I now have a new hobby of caring for these machines. They truly are insidious the way they get their hooks into you.


Mikey is the Sherline guy, when it comes to these little machines if he can't give you an answer it may not exist. This forum is filled with helpful people with a wide range of experiences. Also once you get set up have a look at the tool grinding thread if you haven't already, it is now an insanely long thread, but full of excellent information. https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/models-for-grinding-hss-lathe-tools.62111/

 

[Aaron_W]

Here is a picture of my vise. I double checked and there is no brand on it or the case it came with, just a Made in China sticker on the bottom of the case.

 

[Karl A]

Aaron,
I have not been to Wente Boy Scout Camp. I read about its history. I wonder about the geology that resulted in a spring that feeds the lake. It suggests there isan earthquake fault there. While living in the East Bay, some men whom I have met have mentioned their having been at the camp when they were boy scouts.

I don't need to decide on the quality of some metrology tools, as I purchased the following when I purchased the Sherline lathe: Mitutoyo dial indicator, Mitutoyo dial test indicator set, Mitutoyo 6" digital calipers, Mitutoyo 0-1" micrometer, and Starrett 6" machinists' level. I also have a set of Starrett telescoping ID gauges from before.

An article by Mike on making a small T-square for a vise, "A Useful Milling Square", resulted in the thought that if one has a cylindrical square and a surface playe, one could make one's own set of precision squares. (I can imagine a surface plate, cylindrical square, and height gauge placed in an alcove, constituting a shrine.)

I think that for now, I will go with the set of three squares from Little Machine Shop.

I have been purchasing Techniks collets for for my Beall ER32 collet chuck from All Industrial Tools.
Karl

 

[Aaron_W]

Yes Wente, that's it. I always think I have the name wrong because there is a Wente Winery in Livermore, don't know of there is a connection between them.

I've found those squares are useful, as a quick visual check for squareness even if you eventually find you want something better.

I also use the 6" square to do the initial alignment the head on my larger mill. Just placing the square up against the spindle for a visual check can reliably get me to less than 0.001" over 5" which isn't bad for a quick 1 minute set up. I can get it down to less than 0.0005" over 15" using an indicator and Noga arm in the spindle but that takes about 10 minutes.

I love this thing for aligning the head of the mill and indicating the vise.

https://allindustrial.com/noga-nf10...-metal-3-8-clamp-dial-test-digital-indicator/

 

[Karl A]

In preparation to aligning the vertical bed [column] of my mill, I decided to first map the flatness of the table. That way, I would know a flat place to place the square. Here are the results.

The table dimensions are 13.0 inches by 2.70 inches.

Oct 1, 2020: I made a mistake in converting the dial test indicator readings into heights. The lever angle was 30°. I incorrectly divided the readings by Cosine 30°. The correct adjustment was to multiply the readings by Cosine 30°. The corrected heights are in the table below. KA

 

[Karl A]

I purchased the set of three machinist squares from Little Machine Shop. I used them with a dial test indicator to check the vertical alignment of the column. I found that the mill column leans to the left by 0.5 thousandths inch, and leans back by 0.7 thousandths inch, per 3 inch rise. This is the alignment as received from Sherline.

I also checked the squareness of the machinist squares, by measuring the vertical column alignment twice: before and after rotating the square around the z-axis by 180 degrees. The 6-inch square measured square. The 4-inch square is obtuse (angle greater than 90 degrees): 0.6 thousandths per three inches. The 2-inch square is also obtuse: 0.1 thousandths per 1.5 inches.

Note: The first time I measured the vertical alignment, I used the 4-inch square. It happened that the misalignment of the square matched with the misalignment with of the column. It appeared that the alignment of the mill column was excellent.

 

[mikey]

There should be enough space in the holes that hold the column to the base to correct the side to side alignment. For the front to back alignment, I suggest using shims (aluminum foil works pretty okay) under the base itself and NOT between the column and the base. Once you get it right, it will tend to stay that way.

Also, once you have the mill trammed, recheck it with the tooling plate in place and bolted down. Things may change and you may need to shim the tooling plate. Again, shims under the tooling plate tend to remain stable for a very long time so it pays to get it right.

 

[Karl A]

Mike,

In the thread Buying a Sherline 5400, looking for advice, you wrote: "... I have the extended column and the mill column riser block. This gives you 17" of headroom under the spindle and you will need it all. I also have the rotary column attachment that adds a tiny bit of room in Y and makes tramming a little easier; you can live without it. The column and block are not optional, in my opinion. If you can afford it, buy them. ..."

I have the extended column, but not the mill column riser block. The riser block adds two inches of height. I put off buying until I need it, but now that I am going to add shims for front-to-back alignment I am inclined to buy it and add it now.

To me, you wrote, "... Also, once you have the mill trammed, recheck it with the tooling plate in place and bolted down. Things may change and you may need to shim the tooling plate. Again, shims under the tooling plate tend to remain stable for a very long time so it pays to get it right."

Things did change when I tried adding the tooling plate. The tooling plate is significantly less flat than the table. The height difference across the tooling plate is 3 thousandths; the height difference across the table is 0.8 thousandths.

Sherline in its description of the tooling plate states, "... It not only protects your mill’s table from damage (while also adding additional stiffness), but it also provides an inexpensive, modifiable surface for clamping work that is as flat as the machine’s original table. ... The plate is made from 6061-T6 aluminum that is accurately milled to 1/2″ thick." My tooling plate is not as flat as my machine's table; it does not seem to be accurately milled. Shall I send it back to be milled?

Karl

 

[mikey]

Yes, I would definitely buy the column riser block. It adds that critical 2". With it in place the top of your vise will just clear the bottom of the column so you can get it all the way underneath. There will be times when you need every inch of Y-travel you can get and the column riser really helps here.

As for the tooling plate, I would call Sherline and tell them what the issue is. They may opt to send you another plate.