Sherline ER-16 Mill Kit. Am I missing anything?

[ChazzC]

Regarding the Sherline MB vise fixture: I have the version with Versagrip jaws. Sherline sells that version for hiolding round parts, but I figured that the Versagrip jaws would hold rectangular parts too. I found that to be true.
MB stands for MiteeBite -- the company that makes the jaws.
The fixture does provide clamping force --using an offset screw. The clamping force has the potential to bow the mill table when the fixture is used to hold big or thick parts. Mounting the fixture on a tooling plate is better, but the milling plate needs to have two t-slots for the fixture to mount to.

The larger Sherline fixture/tooling plate has the necessary T-Slots.

 

[Model-99]

Mounting the fixture on a tooling plate is better, but the milling plate needs to have two t-slots for the fixture to mount to.

Thanks Karl. Actual experience is really helpful. I saw the point they make about needing the slotted tooling plate and how it not only reduces the Z travel as you'd expect but also reduces the Y travel which is a bummer.

 

[Aaron_W]

Thanks Karl. Actual experience is really helpful. I saw the point they make about needing the slotted tooling plate and how it not only reduces the Z travel as you'd expect but also reduces the Y travel which is a bummer.

For such a small mill it has pretty good travel. It hss 5" of Y, my much larger Clausing has 6".

When I started shopping for a bigger mill I was considering some of the 7x28" mills like the Grizzly G0704 and PM25. While they are much larger with more power, and weight, surprisingly they don't provide a great increase in travel other than in the X axis. Only 2" of Y (7" total) and only 1" of Z height (13" spindle to table). The main thing you gain in a mill that size is an increase in rigidity. Now something like the PM728T will give you more, but that is a completly different price neighborhood.


You will generally try to align your work so the the majority of movement will be done on the X axis. The table is only 2-3/4" wide so even losing half the Y travel still allows for a lot of movement relative to the part size.