2 ms·

Sad. Is there a free alternative to this ideally community owned and open source?

convolvatron 6d ago
the sherline designs aren't particularly notable, and they're pretty easy to replicate if you have working machine tools that are larger. any machinist could make a sherline mill or lathe, but without that floorspace and capex and skill, one really can't. I spent overly long trying to learn on sherline tools and once I gave up and bought a Bridgeport and an old Logan, I realized that I was just banging my head against the limitations of the tools. the value they had was that they were cheaper than the smaller version of the standard toolroom machines, and they were a way to bootstrap yourself without having the heavy power and the floorspace. so pretty much the storefront, not the IP. I still have their 4" rotary, and its actually not bad. the mill had a huge amount of flex in the column that made it pretty unusable for me unless you took really really tiny passes. I had an old Unimat for a couple years, and while that was even _more_ dodgy than the sherline the fact that it was all steel and a combined mill/lathe made it a lot more interesting. would rather see some community standards for tooling on a platform like that. maybe a 50% larger so setup isn't so fiddly.
- abakker 6d ago
  100% They were fine for what they were, but once you use a big tool you just can’t go back. I think there is plenty of room for innovation in hobby machines, but IME, hobbiest value work envelope maybe even more than pros.
  - WillAdams 6d ago
    Given that the Gingery books folks are shutting down as well: https://gingerybookstore.com/ https://gingerybookstore.com/ one wonders what the other alternatives are. I mentioned Taig elsethread, and the Unimat is still available at https://thecooltool.com/en/ https://thecooltool.com/en/ --- for opensource there are a couple of options: - https://www.lathes.co.uk/multimachine/ https://www.lathes.co.uk/multimachine/ - https://www.printables.com/model/89657-3d-printed-wood-lathe-v2 https://www.printables.com/model/89657-3d-printed-wood-lathe... and I've been debating on getting a small Grizzly G0745: https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-4-x-6-variable-speed-benchtop-metal-lathe/g0745 https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-4-x-6-variable-spee... Are there other notable approaches/options?
    - abakker 5d ago
      If I was in the market for a lathe that small, I’d probably just buy a slightly larger mill and work on rotating parts vertically, TBH. If you were committed to wanting a small lathe and CNC, I’d just put linear rails on some of the larger 8020 profiles and rig a spindle from a cartridge spindle. Honestly, though, an 8x16 lathe is kinda bare minimum for steel parts unless you are working VERY slowly. The 7x14 I had worked, but at that scale, I’d be working hard to implement a clough42 ELS conversion so that threading didn’t suck so bad. If this is genuinely something you want advice/help with, feel free to email me.
      - WillAdams 5d ago
        EDIT: I don't really have room for a manual mill which would be large enough for this sort of thing to make the parts I want(the Grizzly would be really pushing its limits). It's more idle speculation at this point in time --- I did save the electric motor from replacing the garbage disposal recently (cracked housing) and I also have a key duplicator I fished out of a dumpster (working!) and really, it should be workable to fabricate something given the tools I have. If you did a writeup on making a lathe w/ 8020 profiles and a cartridge spindle (source?) I'd be interested --- what would the total landed cost be?
krisoft 6d ago
I'm not sure what you are hoping from "free", "community owned", and "open source". They make mills and lathes. They are really nice little machines, great for hobby use. We have one lathe from them in our hackspace for example, and it is a delight. Of course you have to understand the limitations of the tool, but that is true for every machine. That being said, it is just a lathe. There is nothing particularly complicated about it. At least not at their complexity level. If you can manufacture machine tools you can make one very easily. If you don't have the manufacturing capability you won't. The reason i'm saying this is because "free as in freedom" and "open source" are properties of plans / source code. If you happen to have a lathe factory, the lack of a lathe plan is not going to stop you. You are just going to design one for yourself. And if you don't have a factory which can make a lathe, then why do you care about plans for a lathe being open source? I guess the factory itself could be "community owned". If you have a business plan, or a large pile of cash, now is the time to approach them that you want to buy everything from them. But I'm not sure how "community owned" would even work for this use case. Basically what I'm saying this is hardware, not software. The terms you use don't make much sense in this case.

the sherline designs aren't particularly notable, and they're pretty easy to replicate if you have working machine tools that are larger. any machinist could make a sherline mill or lathe, but without that floorspace and capex and skill, one really can't. I spent overly long trying to learn on sherline tools and once I gave up and bought a Bridgeport and an old Logan, I realized that I was just banging my head against the limitations of the tools. the value they had was that they were cheaper than the smaller version of the standard toolroom machines, and they were a way to bootstrap yourself without having the heavy power and the floorspace. so pretty much the storefront, not the IP. I still have their 4" rotary, and its actually not bad. the mill had a huge amount of flex in the column that made it pretty unusable for me unless you took really really tiny passes. I had an old Unimat for a couple years, and while that was even _more_ dodgy than the sherline the fact that it was all steel and a combined mill/lathe made it a lot more interesting. would rather see some community standards for tooling on a platform like that. maybe a 50% larger so setup isn't so fiddly.

abakker 6d ago
100% They were fine for what they were, but once you use a big tool you just can’t go back. I think there is plenty of room for innovation in hobby machines, but IME, hobbiest value work envelope maybe even more than pros.
- WillAdams 6d ago
  Given that the Gingery books folks are shutting down as well: https://gingerybookstore.com/ https://gingerybookstore.com/ one wonders what the other alternatives are. I mentioned Taig elsethread, and the Unimat is still available at https://thecooltool.com/en/ https://thecooltool.com/en/ --- for opensource there are a couple of options: - https://www.lathes.co.uk/multimachine/ https://www.lathes.co.uk/multimachine/ - https://www.printables.com/model/89657-3d-printed-wood-lathe-v2 https://www.printables.com/model/89657-3d-printed-wood-lathe... and I've been debating on getting a small Grizzly G0745: https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-4-x-6-variable-speed-benchtop-metal-lathe/g0745 https://www.grizzly.com/products/grizzly-4-x-6-variable-spee... Are there other notable approaches/options?
  - abakker 5d ago
    If I was in the market for a lathe that small, I’d probably just buy a slightly larger mill and work on rotating parts vertically, TBH. If you were committed to wanting a small lathe and CNC, I’d just put linear rails on some of the larger 8020 profiles and rig a spindle from a cartridge spindle. Honestly, though, an 8x16 lathe is kinda bare minimum for steel parts unless you are working VERY slowly. The 7x14 I had worked, but at that scale, I’d be working hard to implement a clough42 ELS conversion so that threading didn’t suck so bad. If this is genuinely something you want advice/help with, feel free to email me.
    - WillAdams 5d ago
      EDIT: I don't really have room for a manual mill which would be large enough for this sort of thing to make the parts I want(the Grizzly would be really pushing its limits). It's more idle speculation at this point in time --- I did save the electric motor from replacing the garbage disposal recently (cracked housing) and I also have a key duplicator I fished out of a dumpster (working!) and really, it should be workable to fabricate something given the tools I have. If you did a writeup on making a lathe w/ 8020 profiles and a cartridge spindle (source?) I'd be interested --- what would the total landed cost be?

krisoft 6d ago

I'm not sure what you are hoping from "free", "community owned", and "open source". They make mills and lathes. They are really nice little machines, great for hobby use. We have one lathe from them in our hackspace for example, and it is a delight. Of course you have to understand the limitations of the tool, but that is true for every machine. That being said, it is just a lathe. There is nothing particularly complicated about it. At least not at their complexity level. If you can manufacture machine tools you can make one very easily. If you don't have the manufacturing capability you won't. The reason i'm saying this is because "free as in freedom" and "open source" are properties of plans / source code. If you happen to have a lathe factory, the lack of a lathe plan is not going to stop you. You are just going to design one for yourself. And if you don't have a factory which can make a lathe, then why do you care about plans for a lathe being open source? I guess the factory itself could be "community owned". If you have a business plan, or a large pile of cash, now is the time to approach them that you want to buy everything from them. But I'm not sure how "community owned" would even work for this use case. Basically what I'm saying this is hardware, not software. The terms you use don't make much sense in this case.