Does nobody want dividing heads any more?

The small ones still seem to command a fair price but the big older stuff is really at rock bottom. I was asked last year to sell a big Cincinnati DH with the plates. Problem was the guy had given £250 for it a few years earlier and wanted to get close to that.

If I had stuck it on Ebay and it had gone for £50 I would have been the villain so I just ummm and Ahhed until it went back. Some things are too embarrassing.

I've been interested in buying a method of dividing for a while but there are a wide variety of arrangements out there and the only kind of dividing head I've ever used was a universal head like this on a large Bridgeport sized mill and it was ideal.

However at home I don't have any kind of mill, so dividing tends to be done by makeshift methods in the lathe which is a fairly small 4" centre height Lorch. Unless I'm missing something most of the standard dividing heads are too big/heavy to be used in this sort of make shift way.

So I guess the solution is either buy a mill; or look at smaller units like the Myford one or the Geo. Thomas design, and these seem to change hands at high prices. If there are any other solutions I'd be interested to know.

Alan

Alan,

You might want to look at the feasibility of using one of the smaller rotary tables with a dividing attachment which can work out a lot cheaper than a dedicated dividing head.

Jim.

Down here they're making silly money, best you thrash out a good mail contract with RM, Tim. :-)

Tom

My sense is that 6" is too big for most home workshops. If it's 4.5" then it has a big market. Beyond 5" they start to get big and heavy. For not much more than £250 you could buy a rubbish one with no plates, buy a Divisonmaster kit and move up a step.

Charles

I had been looking for one for the last 12months or so. Plenty at auction, but most of them just too big for me. Most on e-bay were too far away and so a pain to go and collect. Have to agree though, they all went very cheaply.

Eventually I ended up buying a new Vertex BSO semi-universal from Warco. Not too expensive considering, and at least I can claim the VAT back through the business.

For me the advantage of this one is that it has a Myford spindle nose and I can take a job straight off the lathe still chucked and onto the DH. The centre height is 100mm so should cope with most things I need to do on it.

I think the other reason is that many may want some form of rudimentary indexing but not necessarily divdiding, and the spin indexers are cheap enough to make this an attractive proposition for limited usage.

Peter

We picked up a 5" Elliott dividing head for corn money a couple of years ago, very nice nick but missing the tailstock if anyone has a spare....

I think John S has a plate from this one as a pattern for some others?

Similarly with rotary tables, we have a nearly new Victoria 10" which although it was more money, it was still cheap compared with what folks are paying today for el cheapo versions.

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

I used to have a spare, Peter, but now I have the DH to go with it ;-)

Tim

C'est la vie..... :-))

Peter

-- Peter A Forbes Prepair Ltd, Rushden, UK snipped-for-privacy@easynet.co.uk

Could use one here on occasion, but no real hurry. The first job would be an early Centec 2 with a tooth stripped from the fast knee mechanism. Had planned to use the old gear to index the blank in the absence of a dividing head, but still haven't got round to working out which milling cutter I need to use.

A small rotary table would be more usefull generally...

Chris

You could also look to the design published in Home Shop Machinist magazine, the Model Makers Dividing Head, as provided by Philip Duclos in the book, The Shop Wisdom of Philip Duclos.

It seems a nice size, not too small to use, but not stealing all the headroom from a medium sized home machine.

Cheers Trevor Jones

My adaption of a rotary table can be found on my somewhat dated web site at:

Steve R.