Hackaday Links: September 20

Some sad news to start this week off — after 52 years in business, Sherline announced they are winding down their manufacturing operations. By the end of October they …. Links: September 20, 2026.

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.