Shimming a mini-mill - a few questions

[Wreck™Wreck]

X2 on beer cans

Always drink the beer first, some have discarded the beer in order to use the can and this is not right.

One may use soda/pop cans but this material is less then desirable as it exhibits poor creep strength.

 

[chris.trotter]

Beer cans, haha. Looks like they measure 0.003-0.005?

The Lee Valley sampler pack looks like the ticket - $12 and covers 6 sizes, in 2x6" sheets. Perfect! If I can't find anything in the shop, I'll go that route. Then I have leftover stock for future projects.

 

[Bob Korves]

This company has all kinds of shim products:
https://precisionbrand.com/
I have this kit:
https://precisionbrand.com/products/15-piece-steel-shim-stock-asst-6-x-12-sheets/
Got it from Enco some years ago. Very useful, and the sheets thinner than .010" cut to shape easily with ordinary scissors.
Brass is a lot more expensive than steel.
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/00055913
Not a great price from MSC, I got mine for about half that price.

 

[yendor]

Most well stocked Hobby Shops sell Brass used for Model Making (especially Trains oriented Shops)
The brass they sell comes in lots of different thicknesses and sizes.

 

[Nobby]

I used this
https://www.amazon.com/Precision-Ca...0?s=industrial&ie=UTF8&qid=1518917175&sr=1-10

 

[umahunter]

Depending on how thick you need you can usually find some thin aluminum that can be used as a shim in the flashing section at the local home store take your calipers with you to check

 

[umahunter]

I got this aluminum flashing from lowes for some roofing that I've used as shim stock it mesures .007

 

[Aaron_W]

Most well stocked Hobby Shops sell Brass used for Model Making (especially Trains oriented Shops)
The brass they sell comes in lots of different thicknesses and sizes.

I've found a lot of Ace and True Value hardware stores have the same K&S metal display racks that you find in hobby shops.

They make a sampler pack that would be particularly useful for shims, just a variety sheets in different thicknesses.

http://www.ksmetals.com/index.html

 

[T Bredehoft]

Just a thought, if you've got the possibility of coolant running all over, go with steel. Some coolants will corrode (swell) aluminum.

 

[chris.trotter]

Thanks everyone, I ended up ordering the pack from LeeValley, should arrive tomorrow. Been spending the meantime getting the mill torn apart, cleaned, lubed, and put back together.

Discovered the truth in what others said about the cheap gib screws - found one of them was stripped right around the engagement point. ...next thing for me to source...