Drink cans are very thin material, which can be cut into strips. using scissors. John

John's suggestion of drinks cans is good – use them myself. However, most are aluminium these days which can be OK up to a point, but ideally get your pocket magnet out and find steel ones – much better. They are a very consistent thickness.

I have a handy small tray with strips like these, plus offcuts from jobs etc (any old bits will do – isn't critical) and you soon build a good selection that will suit all your needs.

Buy a pair of tin snips and start making yourself a collection of shims from various bits of sheet metal that you can scrounge from just about anywhere. Plenty of old advertising signs use a standard 1mm sheet metal, easily cutable with snips. Plenty of other thicknesses around. Tin cans, old computer cases, kids toys, old appliances, bits of car body etc etc.

Or buy a pack of steel shim material in varying thickneses and cut bits out of them to suit. (Steel shim is cheaper than brass)

Tip: Cut the corners off by a chamfer of a few mm so the shims do not slice your fingers when sticking out of the toolpost right where you are measuring with micrometers, clearing swarf etc etrc.

Steel packing case strip can be usefully recycled as shims.

It;s quite consistent both in width and tihickness

* Danny *

Edited By Danny M2Z on 18/01/2021 11:29:29

+1 for Danny's idea I have a large box full, more than adequate.

Gren.

Ian,

Donuts- I have found a pack of donuts for the workshop crew ensures ongoing plentiful supply of offcuts- stuff they would bin normally but so valuable to us.

What do others maintain 'communications' with?

Pete- retired and wishes he had stockpiled -even more scrap!

I use a four way tool post on my lathe but don’t often need packing. My most used tool is a Tangential Tool holder and this has height adjustment built in. You can make your own or buy them commercially:

Tool Holder

I also use carbide inserts and either trim a bit from the bottom of the tool holder to permanently put them on centre height or epoxy packing on them.

Once in a while I’ll need to use a form tool or boring bar etc. and in this case I have a selection of steel or aluminium strip in a tin next to the lathe. Some of the best stuff is the steel packing bands often used on wooden crates etc.

It is very good advice above to keep the shim with the tool so you only have to set it up once.

I think there used to be a set of shims you could buy precisely for this purpose. They would look like a square-ended,very fat set of feeler gauges. I have seen pictures of them used in a four way indexing toolpost, with the unused leaves rotated 90 degrees into one of the unused tool positions. I cannot find a picture of them but found a similar concept in wood:

Anyone recall them or remember what they were called?

Classic problem, me too!

You fill a workshop with metal munching tools and then discover a few simple shims are difficult! What's needed is a common bit of scrap you don't happen to have. It's all part of the fun…

Dave

Tangential tool and/or QCTP. Use a height gauge for setting.