My Sherline 2010 Milling Machine: Assembly
I got my Sherline Series 2000 Milling Machine recently! Yay!
Dang, this sucker is heavy! And it’s _very_ solidly built. I’m impressed with how solid it is. I had a concern with this because the head and vertical column can be positioned in so many ways, but lemme tell ya: once you crank down on the bolts and get it tight… it’s _solid_.
Anyway, on with the pics! But first, a quick note about these pics: I did not have the lights turned up because it was pretty late by the time I started and even later by the time I finished. So the main light source for these pics was the built-in flash, which has a distance of, well, not much. So I apologize in advance for the crappy pics.
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Packaging: it was very well packaged. The base & table (the base and lower portion of the whole thing) was bolted down to it’s own piece of plywood. Everything was wrapped in either bubblewrap, or light paper. It was very secure as it came with a loose board on top, which kind of made it’s own little box. This kind of box could take a lot of abuse. |
  
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| Here you can see the swingarm and vertical Z-axis with it’s saddle. It was very well packaged and wrapped in paper. The belt guards are in the plastic bag. They will be at the base of the motor and secure the speed control. |
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| Here I am in the middle of taking stuff out of the boxes and getting oriented with what’s what and what goes where… ‘n stuff. Near center is the speed control and motor (still in the box). I’ve got the swingarm mounted on the column base, and the spindle is mounted, too. You can see the assembly instructions lower right. The instructions are excellent, written in regular english (not Chinglish), are in color, and are complete with many diagrams, including a complete exploded view in the back with parts listings. |
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| I put my hand on the swingarm to give you an idea of how small this mill is. By this time I had un-bolted the base from the plywood, but I left it in there because it’s a good solid board to use–better than the carpet! If I slide the swingarm out far enough it’ll tip the machine over. |
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| Here it is from the front. The model is 2010, because I wanted the metric version. The regular version is in American inches, model 2000. Normally, I would have gone with the American version, but all the stuff I’ve been working with lately has been in metric, and I want to continue working with it, so I’m sticking with metric. Anyway, Sherline sells a conversion kit if I need to switch to American. |
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| From this angle, you can see that I put the extra riser block on the column. I didn’t know it was optional when I put it together. I was just building a kit, and I had the pieces, so I put it together. Later on I found out that it was optional. Actually, the Z-axis (up and down) travel is so good (both low and high) that the spindle almost touches the table _with_ this extra height in the column. So I’m going to leave it on. |
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| Another angle. With the swingarm slid all the way out, and swung around like this, and with the motor attached, it would tip over. This machine has _a lot_ of motion possibilities. |
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This is the motor mounted to the spindle with the speed control. In the first pic, the spindle is lying down on the paper, and the motor is facing away towards the power cord. It’s a very solid mounting, and the position of the motor is variable to apply tention to the belt, or to loosen it so that you can change the belt position (for more torque). In the second picture, the speed control is on top and the spindle is down and to the left. The third pic is for size comparison. Oh, and by the way, did I mention that these things are heavy? And solid? Well, they’re heavy, and they’re solid. |
  
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At last, the motor, speed control, and spindle are mounted to the Z-axis saddle! By the way, the speed control is continuously variable from 70 to 2800 RPM, and it does it’s best to keep the motor spinning at speed. Even under load, it is continuously adjusting power to keep it spinning at the same speed. It’s a good quality speed control unit and a good quality motor. As I was getting the tour down at the Shirline factory, the guy demonstrated the power of the motor. He turned it down to a very slow speed, then tried to stop it from turning by holding his thumb and fingers on top of the spindle wheel (the one with the belt). He pushed down as hard as he could and was unable to stop it or slow it down. When he let go, it maintained speed. I was also unable to stop it. I was impressed. In the third pic, the whole unit is facing away, so you get the rear-view. As you can see, the spindle is almost all the way up at the top of the Z-axis travel. The little brass thingie sticking out is a lock. Slide it counterclockwise and the Z-axis is locked from moving. I believe all axes have locks (but I’m no expert on this machine yet. |
   
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| Here’s a little rotational tour of the thing all put together and ready to do some milling. In the last pic I slid the spindle down most of the way and attached the chuck. Also, it’s on top of the box so you can see the thing better. I can’t wait to start making stuff with it! |
    
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