A Dividing Head Anyone Can Build

[Mark_f]

Always amazed at how much you get accomplished. The boring bar setup is very clever. Nice job. Mike

I came up with that idea when I needed a boring head to make my steady rest and didn't have one.

 

[RVJimD]

This sort of stuff is great for someone like me (very little experience, still absorbing info like a sponge) with the pictures! I learn a lot simp,y from seeing how you setup and hold a part and that sort of stuff.

Thanks for posting!

Jim

 

[Mark_f]

Every thing went well today, got a lot done. Yesterday I machined the body bearings and chucked up and roughed the spindle. Today I finished machining the spindle.
After machining the bearing surfaces to within .001" I filed the diameter to the last couple tenths and polished too the finish fit.

The body was checked for fit and it is as perfect as possible. A good sliding fit with no play and turns free and smooth.

Next the body and gear checked for fit together and everything is perfect so far.

The spindle was turned around in the 4 jaw and indicated too within .0002". The end is machined down to 1.500" to be threaded 1 1/2-8 to my lathe my lathe and 4 inch manual rotary table.

The threads are single pointed to give a good snug fit.

the spindle was drilled all the way through at .312", the threaded end cut to finish length., and the end of the spindle bored to .655" , 3" deep to accept 3C collets. Tomorrow I will cut the angle in the end for the collets.

 

[4GSR]

Mark,

It's amazing what you can do on a 9" SBL. I've done similar things on mine in the past too, over the years.

Your dividing head reminds me of one my dad built us to use many years ago. It was made from a worm gear set that had a 39:1 ratio. He had hundreds of these at his disposal at the time. But rather have the index plate on the crank side, dad mounted the index plate directly on the spindle side of the index head. It was limited, but got the job done. Wish I still had that DH today.

Mark, I like your drawings. The chuck tightening pinions are just slightly out of skew! But is cool!

Keep up the great work! I enjoy your threads.

 

[CannonFodder]

I don't mind the long hard hours in the shop, I could watch you do it all day!
Thanks for sharing another awesome project, I really enjoy what you share.
You are the Mark of Quality.

Bob

 

[Mark_f]

Mark,

It's amazing what you can do on a 9" SBL. I've done similar things on mine in the past too, over the years.

Your dividing head reminds me of one my dad built us to use many years ago. It was made from a worm gear set that had a 39:1 ratio. He had hundreds of these at his disposal at the time. But rather have the index plate on the crank side, dad mounted the index plate directly on the spindle side of the index head. It was limited, but got the job done. Wish I still had that DH today.

Mark, I like your drawings. The chuck tightening pinions are just slightly out of skew! But is cool!

Keep up the great work! I enjoy your threads.

I don't have any of those fancy computer drawing programs. I use windows paint, so I have to draw every line and circle manually. It takes a lot of time but it's still easier than by hand. I downloaded a couple of the car types programs but couldn't figure them out.

 

[JimDawson]

Great project Mark. A lot of ingenuity in the tooling and setups.

 

[chips&more]

You take Yankee Ingenuity to the next level! Very, very nice!

 

[iron man]

Good article simple and straight forward.

 

[lnr729]

The following formula is used to determine the holes required for a number of divisions. While the example uses 10 holes a larger multiple of holes will cover the same number of divisions and several more.

R = Ratio
H = Holes
D = Divisions
W = Holes per division ( must be a whole number and will be as long as it is a multiple of D)

W = R x H / by D

I have written a computer program that solves indexing problems and if desired will print out a chart of solutions for the workshop. Rather than going into long details here check out the web page.

http://www.dogcreek.ca/shopcalc/shopcalc13/index.html

This is my latest version and not yet publicly released (still waiting for Spanish and Dutch translations). This is free software.