Sherline verses Cowells

Hi all,

I read many discussion about Myford and Warco machines. What
about smaller type, the Sherline (US made) and Cowells (UK made) machines?

Does anyone own a Sherline or Cowells likes to voice up
the ups and downs of using these machines?

I have a Sherline lathe and mill. Both served me well for over
a decade. No regrets but ones should not take too deep feed and
making sure not overheat the dc motor for long usage.

My biggest turned job were bench drill press-axial shaft and
my bicycle crankshaft using the Sherline lathe.

Regards

I plan to fit it on the end of my EW lathe-bed as a micro-milling attachment working on jobs attached to the EW boring table. It may also find a use as a milling spindle for work in the chuck - but this will require a different mounting. Anyway - a very expensive     lump of cast iron has just arrived to facilitate this marriage of EW to Peatol.

So based on this very superficial experience (so far) I would suggest that for many purposes a Peatol lathe might be quite suitable for some folk - certainly for smaller work - and very much less expensive than a Cowell (I'm sorry to say). Worth exploring though if pennies are tight!

Edited By IanT on 14/12/2011 17:46:33

Edited By IanT on 14/12/2011 17:48:02

I am surprised that no-one has mentioned the Unimat. I have no experience with the latest incarnation, but the U3 served me well for many a year - in fact it was the first lathe I owned. The attachments are plentiful and books and many articles have been written about making accessories for it. I believe that the U4 has addressed the lack of power and the fact that the U3 motor was only intermittent rated.

I found the milling attachment quite useful, even though in larger size machines the combi machine is restricting.

Dave

The Emerald Isle

I had my cowells for a while when I started college and was using a Colchester 1800, I told my tutor I thought my cowells was too small to do anything with. He told me off for disregarding such good tool and suggested I build a project on the cowells to find its limits. Part at home and part at college I completely built a Stuart Turner 10H using only my cowells . Excellent machine using it now to make bits to get my Myford ml1 going. Yes it was expensive then but 37 years later is still as good .

.

Golly. That is nearly as long ago as the original thread was started.

Nick

I have been using my Cowells for years and I have few comments first new belts do not slip once the belt starts to slip it is getting worn out, having to remove the spindle to replace is probably why Cowells owners do not replace the belts as often as they could. never had a problem with accuracy had no problems using 0.5mm carbide drills on French Clock pivots or making parts for my Stewarts S50 steam engine

Second comment never used a Sherline but they have a good rep with USA clock makers , my observation is the black anodising looks terrible after a year or so

Edited By Stephen Benson on 21/07/2017 17:02:33