lathe mill drill

[tmac1956]

William:

Your questions are good ones and David is “the man” about this stuff. He has saved me much money and heartburn and as I said before he is very patient. No one could ask dumber questions than me. Besides, after seeing the threading that you did I can see that you have a great understanding of the bigger lathe.

BTW… I just want everyone to know that the avitar is not a picture of me. I actually look much worse. When I get the courage I’ll post the real deal.

Later,
Tom

[willofiam]

Thanks Tom, your kind words are encouraging!!!! by the way no courage necessary about your picture, we are who we are, what we look like is not as important as how we treat others…..we cant all be as good looking as Paul 😯

[david pierce]

William,
A dividing head and a rotary table are different machines but the rotary table , according to how it is set up, can accomplish the same task. Both machines have tapered center holes to accept Morse taper centers. The dividing head is designed to hold a shaft and the rotary table is designed to hole a plate, however, the rotary table can be put up into the vertical position and double as a dividing head. This brings us to the hole plates. It is common for the hole plate on the dividing head to have hole patterns on both sides of a reasonably large plate. The rotary table will usually have a number of small plates. If that was a dividing head you looked at it is likely that all of the holes needed were on that plate, but on both sides.
david

[demewill]

We have a Smithy at work in the engineering “model shop”. I have used it a few times, and my impression is that it is a little rough. By this I mean that it does not have a nice smooth feel and does not sound smooth. I have a friend who adapted two Rong Fu mills to CNCand he had very good results. I have heard that these come from the same factory,along with a host of other brands. Quality control seems to be one thing that differentiates the brands. e.g. Enco lathes are finely finished, Harbor Freight a little less and Comings tool just a little less. Grizzly makes some real nice tools, and I suspect they have their own manufacturing site and quality specifications. Millions of this class of machines have been sold so they can’t be all bad. One down side of the combo machines is that they seem to be in the wrong mode at any given time.
I have a taig lathe, and mill. I can vouch for the quality of their products I like having the separate machines, and i don’t think it takes up any more room. They do have limitations in size. I have never taxed the mill beyond limits. I can chuck up a price of 3″ steel in the lathe, but trying to get a nice finish is a chore. The lathe is not rigid enough for this loading. The small belts struggle with low speed and high torque; they work much better with high RPM.
Dan

[david pierce]

Damewill,
I have a Rong Fu wood shaper and it is a strong powerful machine. I also have a similar size Grizzly shaper (G1026 3hp) and it is also nice, but the Rong Fu is a stronger heavier machine.
david

[willofiam]

Hey David, this is what I am looking at, ebay # 281244585232 ending soon. Is this an actual product or did someone use a speed control head and add the dividing ect..

[david pierce]

William,
That looks like a contraption inspired by my favorite TV show MOONSHINERS. It appears that someone attached a lathe chuck to a belt drive speed reducer. An actual dividing head is a high precision item designed and built to precision tolerances. Mine looks like Ebay #230660710664.
david

[david pierce]

William,
That looks like a contraption inspired by my favorite TV show MOONSHINERS. It appears that someone attached a lathe chuck to a belt drive speed reducer. An actual dividing head is a high precision item designed and built to precision tolerances. Mine looks like Ebay #230660710664.
david

[willofiam]

Thanks David. yours has a 3 15/16 center height, is there a way to reduce this height (possibly using moonshiners techniques) or is there a smaller version, I cannot seem to find one. William

[david pierce]

William,
That is the smallest dividing head that I know of. It fits on my larger milling machine but is too large for my Harbor Freight machine. For that I use a 4″ rotary table (in the vertical position) with the dividing plates and sector arm. The rotary table has a Morse taper hole in the center to accept a dead center. A centerdrilled shaft fixture goes on that end with a driving dog in contact with the table. The other end of the shaft fixture is held in by the tailstock. It accomplishes the same task. Roger Smith has a gear cutting video on Youtube using a shaft fixture but he has it mounted in a Schaublin Lathe. The concept is the same, just a different machine and setup.
david

[willofiam]

that sounds like the ticket, thank you ,William

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