Usefulness of rotary table for Atlas horizontal milling machine

[JPMacG]

I have the opportunity to pick up an Atlas indexing rotary table for a good price. I would like add it to my collection of original accessories for my Atlas MFC mill. But from a practical standpoint, I don't see that a rotary table for a horizontal mill will be useful. I can't think of any task that I would use it for. I have a rotary vise - basically the same function as the table.

Does anyone have a rotary table for their Atlas mill? Has it been useful?

 

[mmcmdl]

I could see it useful if it was mounted horizontally .

 

[JPMacG]

Yes, absolutely. I could mount it horizontally using an angle plate. The work envelope would be really constrained though.

 

[francist]

I do have a small one for the miller and have used it. It's not the Atlas one, its a 3" I think Made-in-India type thing. Works well in the vertical orientation -- I'm calling the "vertical orientation" as what it looks like if you were to stand the table on its edge, not lying flat like a pancake. Don't know if that's the correct description but that's what I see it as. I used it for milling arc-shaped slots in a wheel balancing plate.

 

[JPMacG]

Yes, I can see that a rotary table would be useful in the vertical orientation as you described. With it mounted that way and an end mill in the spindle I could mill arced slots, radii, etc.

I might pass on the Atlas rotary table and get myself an import table that has provision for mounting in both orientations. The Atlas doesn't really accommodate vertical mounting. I'd have to make some kind of custom angle plate.

 

[francist]

Yeah I was wondering about the Atlas part being able to sit on edge. Even so, I ended up modifying mine a bit with a secondary base to make bolting it down easier. I wrote a short post about it here...

2019 POTD Thread Archive

Bruce , I hope you visited him in Ireland ! My son went to U of Limerick for his Masters . We all visited the island for 2 weeks exploring all ends . Ireland is a very cool place I must say . :encourage:

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[JPMacG]

Very nice workmanship! How do you like the 3" table? I see a 6" on eBay for $150 that looks interesting. I think it would fit OK on the MFC table.

VEVOR 6" Rotary Table Horizontal Vertical Dividing Plates for Milling Machine | eBay

VEVOR 8" Precision Horizontal and Vertical Rotary Table. VEVOR Rotary Table XY Axis Rotary Table 8" 3-Slot for Milling Drilling. VEVOR Milling Drilling Machine Worktable Cross Slide Table 4" X 7.3" Bench Table.

www.ebay.com

 

[francist]

Thanks. I like the 3” table well enough. It’s small for sure but to me it seems in keeping with the rest of the machine. I still have some flexibility in terms of positioning which can sometimes be lost with bigger accessories — they’ll only fit on the table in basically one place and it doesn’t take much before you start losing room for cutters and such. Rotary tables seem hard to visualize with respect to useful size, I find. Most of what I fool around with is small anyhow so it fits with my typical work envelope. I’m also not averse to putting on a secondary platen if I need more clamping space.
Regardless of which one you buy, count on tearing it apart to get the innards cleaned up. On mine it was night and day in terms of performance and feel. I did a post on that too..

RT Rehab

Got the little rotary table tuned up enough to actually do something. This is the one I bought a few weeks ago and right out of the gate I knew I was going to have to put some time into it. I had intended to put together a more thorough play-by-play of what I did but it was starting to feel...

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One exception to that statement might be a Vertex — man that thing felt nice right off the shelf but the price made me put it right back!

 

[JPMacG]

I went with the Vevor 6" table. It is large but seems to fit the mill well. I think it will be a useful addition to my arsenal.

Francist is absolutely correct about opening, cleaning and inspecting the table. Inside the casting I found some chips, a screw that had fallen out of the ring gear flange and a broken tip from a tap. I had to re-tap some bad threads and replace a screw that was too long. But I think the castings are well machined. The perpendicularity, parallelism and flatness are good. It is like the castings and worm gear were made by a competent shop but some kid did final assembly. It came with indexing plates. Not sure that I will ever use them, but they are nice to have.