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Winner A Dividing Head By Wayne

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Welcome. I will assist you any way I can in your Quest to build a dividing head or anything else. It makes me feel good to know that I accomplish my mission in these later years of life and that is to pass on knowledge and inspire machinists to make their own quality tooling. I didn't really make any plans for the dividing head because I made it from whatever I could find and I needed to keep it small enough for my little mill, so I kind of built it on the fly by the seat of my pants so to speak. I'm sure there are things that can be improved or done differently and I would have done also but like I said, I used what I could find and ended up with a nice dividing head for around $50

So, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.
 
Wayne,
That is great. I like to see someone making use of odd pieces. I do that all the time. I will be following your build with great interest.
 
Gulp!!! Thank you, I am not sure what to type. Thank you flguy, and craigb1960 and Mark. Mark, I hope you don't mind me using you design?
I have done some more work but haven't got myself a new camera yet, I will sort that. I have some cheap cutters from ebay Chinese, cheap and cheerful,
but only 22mm long so I was not sure I could cut all the way through the barrel so after finishing on the lathe I decided that rightly or wrongly that was the next operation. The cutters are end mills so I drilled 8mm holes through the barrel at the limits of the slot to half way through the barrel and then used the
10mm cutter till it started to wear down the plain portion of the shaft. Then used a 12mm cutter to a depth of 15mm then continued with the 10mm cutter to the middle of the barrel. I have a er16 collet chuck in the mill with the cutter a long way out I thought if all goes pear shaped the I will have to buy a longer cutter and have another go later. I have been buying cheap cutters on ebay at £6 for 5 cutters 12mm 10 8 6 4mm for a few weeks one set each week that includes post and inport, i have about 10 sets so if I break one what the heck. I got to the middle, heart in mouth, no probs, and the cut the 2 flats for the
worm spindle at the sides of the main slot. These flats were to be the reference to cut the slot from the other side, I turned the barrel over but I have no parallels so I used 2 6mm hss lathe tools that I had that were the same size as each other, I have 6 of them but only 2 of them are the same size. I wiggled
all in and started again cutting the slot from the other side after about an hour and 3 cups of tea later the slot met, well nearly but not bad.

20140609_201859.JPG
 
wayne.inspain said:
Gulp!!! Thank you, I am not sure what to type. Thank you flguy, and craigb1960 and Mark. Mark, I hope you don't mind me using you design?
I have done some more work but haven't got myself a new camera yet, I will sort that. I have some cheap cutters from ebay Chinese, cheap and cheerful,
but only 22mm long so I was not sure I could cut all the way through the barrel so after finishing on the lathe I decided that rightly or wrongly that was the next operation. The cutters are end mills so I drilled 8mm holes through the barrel at the limits of the slot to half way through the barrel and then used the
10mm cutter till it started to wear down the plain portion of the shaft. Then used a 12mm cutter to a depth of 15mm then continued with the 10mm cutter to the middle of the barrel. I have a er16 collet chuck in the mill with the cutter a long way out I thought if all goes pear shaped the I will have to buy a longer cutter and have another go later. I have been buying cheap cutters on ebay at £6 for 5 cutters 12mm 10 8 6 4mm for a few weeks one set each week that includes post and inport, i have about 10 sets so if I break one what the heck. I got to the middle, heart in mouth, no probs, and the cut the 2 flats for the
worm spindle at the sides of the main slot. These flats were to be the reference to cut the slot from the other side, I turned the barrel over but I have no parallels so I used 2 6mm hss lathe tools that I had that were the same size as each other, I have 6 of them but only 2 of them are the same size. I wiggled
all in and started again cutting the slot from the other side after about an hour and 3 cups of tea later the slot met, well nearly but not bad.

View attachment 127557
Click to expand...
Of course I don't mind. I'm honored you would get the inspiration to do this project. I will be glad to help any way I can. I can get carried away adding features to a project. If you leave out the direct indexing feature, you don't need to worry about a way to disengage the worm and if you leave out the collet capabilities, you make the project much easier and still end up with a great dividing head.
 
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Hi Wayne,

Welcome to the site!

That's a very useful and ambitious project you have started in on. Good for you. :encourage:

I would think that being in an agricultural area with those tools you may quickly become a repair shop for all kinds of farm equipment.

Please keep the updates and photos coming.
I am also watching your build.

-brino
 
Hi Brino, thanks for the welcome. I have been in Spain for about 14 years now doing building work and metal work, gates and such. The farming is mainly small farms and every-one has a brother or an uncle or a nephew that fixes car or tractors or builds walls.
Hi Mark, Yep! I was thinking of leaving out, at the moment, the ability to dis-engage the
worm but may be add it later if I need it. Also I don't have a proper worm wheel yet and one of the first jobs for the indexer would be to try
and make a set, if I manage this then possibly I could add a vernier hand wheel to make it into a rotary table, because that is another thing
I have not yet got. One thing I have not yet figured out is how to accurately mark the degree graduations on the main body, again this may have
to come later. I won't get in the shop today, me and some of the village lads are off on bikes and quads for a run out in the coutry and it will end up in a bar drinking too much beer, it's a chore but some-one has to do it.
 
I have a thread on here somewhere about marking dials. But the way I did it was to use a degree wheel on my lathe ( which I made). You can very accurately mark the degrees this way.
 
I will try to find your thread but I think I know what you mean. I managed to get into the shop today after all and started to to mill the flats
where the main spindle goes through, the pic shows the side that the spindle lock will fasten to. I left a small shoulder on the side that the lock will bolt
I thought it would raise it slightly to clear the barrel and not scrape the side, but when I flipped the barrel over to do the other side I could not get
any thing parallel in to mount the barrel on the bed, so I had to turn it back over and clock it back up and mill it off. Tomorrow I will find some way
of boring the hole through the middle.

20140610_002621.JPG
 
my body was flat. I just made a shim the thickness needed to space the lock to be in the right place on the spindle. You are doing great. I never would have had the patience to mill that slot. I made mine in two pieces. I drilled a hole and sawed down to it on each side , then made an end to bolt on. What you did is far better and nicer.
 
In post #65 of my thread building the dividing head, you can see how I marked the degree markings using my index wheel. I think there is also a thread on here somewhere about making the index wheel.
 
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