Book & Drawings

I had need to drill 2 holes in the faced-off end of a part I had in the lathe (for a peg spanner). Not having a dividing head I contemplated lashing up something to register of the back gear pinion but was pressed for time. What I did was hold a precision spirit level on the side of one of the chuck jaws, rotated the chuck until level, then rotated the chuck 180 degrees and set the level on the opposite side. A 3 jaw chuck will work for 2, 3 and 6 divisions (4 with a decent square)

Not having a toolpost spindle of any sort I lashed a dremel to the toolpost and used that to slowly drill the holes.

I have not seen this use for a level before and thought I would pass the idea on in case it was of interest.

Ian Phillips

This is what makes us engineers...

I have seen it described in Engineering Mags and I used the method to file a hex on brass bar, though I didn't have a precision level (I used a builders level, bit big but it did the job). Checking the hex with a hex spanner of the correct size proved it to be very good.

(I actually sat the level across two jaws, as the jaws are self centering, they should (ahem) be the same distance from center at any point on the jaws.)

Regards, Dave.

I've not heard of it for dividing, but IIRC someone did use it to get 2 holes at opposite ends of a long bar (6' IIRC) drilled parallel.

He simply clamped a bracket across the bar, and used a precision level on the bracket during the

BugBear (impressed at both tricks)