Some sad news to start this week off — after 52 years in business, Sherline has announced they are winding down their manufacturing operations. By the end of October they estimate they’ll have produced their last tool, and although they will no longer be making new products, they plan on supporting their existing customers for as long as possible. Although from the sound of the press release, that may mean simply keeping the website up and selling through their inventory of spare parts.
The company offered a range of American-made miniature lathes and mills, and while their manual machines may have been better known in our community, they did eventually branch out into CNC. The press release doesn’t go into a lot of detail about the chain of events that led up to this decision, but it does mention the challenges of modern manufacturing and the lingering aftereffects of the COVID pandemic.
At first blush, it might seem strange that the company would falter just as desktop CNCs appear to finally be gaining momentum, but of course that doesn’t change their ability to compete with overseas manufacturing in terms of price.
Of course, keeping competitive is only a concern when you actually have competitors in the first place. That’s the situation that NASA and Boeing may find themselves in should SpaceX decide to retire the Crew Dragon after 2030. While the International Space Station will (probably) be out of the equation by that point, the US space agency will still need the capability to fly humans to… somewhere, and that means there will be lucrative government contracts up for grabs.
The chances of any other American company developing and launching a human-rated spacecraft between now and the end of the decade are pretty much zero, which means Boeing will have to pick up the slack with their Starliner capsule. Or at least, try to, as Starliner hasn’t exactly had the best track record so far. Although by the 2030s SpaceX plans to have transitioned most, if not all, of its operations to Starship, one does wonder if a big enough check from Uncle Sam could change its mind.
While the market for putting humans into orbit might be shrinking, there’s no shortage of new ways to move stuff around here on terra firma. IEEE Spectrum has the details on a rather unique electric vehicle from startup Revoy that’s designed to sit between a traditional diesel semitruck and its cargo trailer. This essentially turns the combined rig into a hybrid, with the EV module capable of pushing the load for up to 400 kilometers (250 miles). Though it might seem rather low-tech, this approach offers a major advantage in that fleets won’t need to replace their existing vehicles to take advantage of the efficiency gains promised by electrification — with the company claiming that it can cut a truck’s total fuel consumption by up to 85%.
If the day has been going a little too smoothly for your liking and you need something to be frustrated about, here’s something to agonize over. Reality Check shows you images and tasks you with determining if they’re AI-generated or not. As the timer ticks down, you’ll be furiously searching the background for malformed bits of text or extra fingers, but even that trick won’t necessarily save you in this era of increasingly capable image models.
Finally, while AI is getting very good at fooling grandmothers on Facebook, we can take some comfort in the knowledge that it’s finding the business world far more difficult to dominate. Drew Magary recently wrote up the experience of visiting a store “managed” by an AI model for SFGATE, and it sounds like things are going just as poorly as you’d imagine.
Given agency to pick the items it wanted to sell in the store, the computer stocked the shelves with bric-a-brac that has no obvious overarching theme, and although there’s a human staffer behind the counter, purchases apparently need to be negotiated with the AI via voice chat. The store is burning through its initial investment money with no profit in sight, made all the worse by the fact that one of the line items on the budget is the token cost to run the AI that’s mismanaging the whole thing in the first place.
It’s an entertaining read, and a refreshing splash of cold water on the general AI hype that seems so prevalent these days. But its impact as a condemnation of machine learning in business is undermined a bit when the bottom of every page on SFGATE reminds readers that they are producing content with the assistance of generative AI. C’est la vie.
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They used to make small lathes, that’s adorable, but they forgot to expand. In Europe the default choice for a small non-chinese lathe or mill is Proxxon. If they outcompeted it with better prices they could stay in business.
They were an Australian company, and did expand when they shifted manufacturing to the USA.
I saw an Australian made Sherline lathe on Gumtree (local Oz buy/sell market) a few years ago, kicking myself for not buying it at the time.
That was Clisby.
They kept making stuff ender their own name, they closed down about 20 years ago. I think they first made the lathes after WWII, even then they’d been around for the best part of a century.
Thanks for mentionning Proxxon. I’m in the EU and I’m looking for a small/desktop-sized lathe+mill and was wondering whether any EU actors were around. I’m gonna look at their catalog.
i was about to buy a proxxon but iirc what turned me off was they didn’t allow a drill chuck to be fitted on their tail stock. much of what i do requires that.
Always preferred TAIG over sherline. A few years back I swapped out my Taigs motor with a 3/4hp ConSew csm1000 brushless sewing machine motor, and OH MY GOD it unlocked beastmode. WIsh I would have done it sooner,
I did the same! I used a 3/4 HP washing machine motor bolted to the same plywood base as the Taig. It runs fine but weighs an awful lot. I picked up a cheapo chinese small drill press at a car swap meet which has a 1/4 or 1/3 HP motor on it but haven’t got around to swapping it over yet.
seriously, the 3/4 hp washing machine motor has nothing on a speed controlled brushless sewing machine motor. it gets full torque at any speed. Totally worth the $200
I used a treadmill motor. “Only” 0.6 HP but an improvement over what I had. I’ve got a 1.5HP one but that’s a probably a bit much.
For most treadmills they use serial comms between the motor and controls boards rather than a simple PWM or 10v interface, so you’ll need to figure out the protocols. The most common ones have already been worked out.
The one I’ve got also supported IR and BlueTooth so in theory I could hook up the original controller and run it from my phone. What a time to be alive.
“The chances of any other American company developing and launching a human-rated spacecraft between now and the end of the decade are pretty much zero”
Blue Origin is entirely vertically integrated for its own launches. They use their own suborbital vehicle, New Shepard, for tourism and research flights, They have flown 12 crewed missions to suborbital space using its New Shepard rocket system, carrying a total of nearly 100 passengers past the Kármán Line. New Shepard is a fully human-rated suborbital vehicle, Blue Origin’s heavy-lift orbital rocket, New Glenn, completed its first uncrewed test flight in January 2025 and is not yet human-rated. While they currently have suspended space tourism flights, And their Blue Moon Mark 2 (MK2) program is not expected to have a human flight before the “end of decade” target the author has setout, Their current timetable has boots ON THE LUNAR GROUND in 2030….so close enough and waaaay mor eimpressive than an ISS hookup.
What is the point of this comment? Blue Origin has no known plans to develop a crewed LEO vehicle.
Blue Moon is a lunar lander. It cannot carry passengers to space or return them to Earth.
The point is to highlight that SpaceX isnt the only player on the board. They already have suborbital capability, and are actibely engaged in a lunar project. While the Blue Moon requires lockheeds Orion for transport, it is STILL a HUMAN RATED SPACE CRAFT….A spacecraft is not inherently a LAUNCH SYSTEM. But if thats your metric, Then the April 2026 Artemis II mission using the aforementioned Lockheed Orion.
edit due to omitted word : “But if thats your metric, Then SEE the April 2026 Artemis II mission using the aforementioned Lockheed Orion.”
SpaceX is absolutely the only other player on the board. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Yuppa. But they currently still use American run launch sites so need to ask permission to launch, even if it’s an automatic process
yea that part of the article was deeply flawed and miopic.
Revoy hybrid is interesting but I imagine it’s not going to make much of an impact on the current situation.
Also without legislation changes it won’t be road legal in a lot of places as you’re creating a mini road-train arrangement.
well, im not sure about that. you have trailers with articulated front wheels. its more like that. the problem is driving backwards with such a trailer…
Not an issue.
while Recreational double towing (or triple towing as RVrs call it) is illegal in 20 states, Federal law requires all 50 states to allow commercial double-trailer rigs (such as a tractor pulling two semi-trailers, often called STAA doubles) on the National Network of interstate and designated federal highways, provided the combination does not exceed length limits (typically 65 feet or more depending on the route) and a gross vehicle weight rating of 80,000 pounds
Ummm, I still have my class A tag on my license, but can only legally use it with a current medical. Can drive all sorts of interesting stuff without the medical