New Hand Wheel Dials.

[Vegemitesandwich]

This old Jet-16 round column mills' hand wheels do not have index dials that will rotate to zero. I have some ideas on making some to slip over the old ones but wonder how to get the all the marks on them accurately.

 

[coffmajt]

If you know your amount of travel for one handwheel revolution you could use either a rotary table or a spin indexer to get the increments you need. When I have made index wheels I used a piece of O1 tool steel sharpened to a point and hardened to make my scribe marks, then used steel number stamps to add the needed division labels. -- Jack

 

[Vegemitesandwich]

1 rev = .1" so 100 marks. Number stamps, I didn't think of that. Wonder if I could get the numbers engraved at the mall

 

[Alittlerusty]

Spindex or rotary table and take a tiny end mill and dimple the degree line locations then u can scribe the lines at the bench vise reasonably accurate and perhaps a jeweler could do the numbers but I think the stamps with some sort of jig will give u nice crisp numbers . U only need numbers every .010" or even .020" depending on the look you are going for
For

 

[Vegemitesandwich]

Found a Tublcain video on the very subject. Took almost an hour and 3 prior parts to get to the indexing part Zzzzzzzzz huh, oh. He's good but he does tend to pratter on. Short answer is there is a gazillion ways scribe the lines if your creative from $6K Yuasa rotary tables to a homemade dividing heads. I am sure I will come up with something nice and a box of scrap along the way.

 

[mikey]

You could just buy replacements from Emco for the Rong Fu model that matches yours. I suspect they will fit right on there.

 

[tweinke]

Just a thought on your dials, are they held with a setscrew? I had a machine that was that way and removed the setscrews and replaced them with thumb screws. just loosen thumb screw zero the dial and retighten. nice thing is they do not move unless you want them to.

 

[Vegemitesandwich]

They are pinned to the lead screw Jet still supports the Jet-15 and 18 I could try those parts. It's a 5/8" screw so are some bridgeport parts. I will figure out or make something. Before someone says DRO that would triple the tired old things value. It does run, is reasonable accurate, well as one can be having been dropped twice that I know of and lets just not talk about those pipe wrench marks.