Fun With Vertical Mills

I've never had terribly good luck with this Sherline vertical mill--and I wasn't sure if it was because I bought it used--and perhaps used up. The problem has always been that I couldn't get the mill vise to hold parts firmly enough. As soon as I tried to run an end mill or a flycutter over a part, it would eventually shake loose.

I finally reached the end of my frustration, and began to wonder if there was something worn out about this mill vise, so I contacted the president of Sherline (who responded on his private email--on a Saturday!) and he confirmed that what I was doing should work, and made some suggestions. (One of which, politely stated, was to read the manual for the mill vise.)

Well, it turns out that the socket head screw that tightens down the mill vise is no longer a particularly good hexagon inside--it is definitely a bit rounded. I tried to find a replacement 1 5/8" long, 10-32 socket head screw at Lowe's and at Home Depot on my way back from the Idaho Military History Museum--no luck. They had nothing in 10-32. The leap is always from 8-32 to 10-24.

So I ran down to Horseshoe's Hardware. Horseshoe's Hardware is one of the more surprising retail operations. It is one of the smallest square footage hardware stores that I have ever seen--and yet it is surprisingly well stocked. Things like metric dies. I called easily a dozen stores trying to find metric dies in Boise a year or two ago, without success. I would never have guessed Horseshoe's Hardware would have such things. (The owner is also a surprisingly interesting person--former social worker, and as you might expect, pretty well read.)

While Horseshoe's Hardware didn't have exactly what I needed, they did have a 2" 10-32 thumbscrew, which worked well enough for me use it in the mill vise--and my, what a difference! I can now exert enough force for the mill vise to hold 1/4" aluminum or Delrin plate tightly enough for me to take actually quite aggressive cuts.