Methinks you have a tendency to pontificate, Norman, albeit in a waffling sort of way. What's a 127t 30 DP gear, Vol 113 and Cleeve etc got to do with the subject in hand? If it took this character Cleeve until 1956 to discover the use of a 127t gear, perhaps he was smoking a similar substance to yourself. BTW Hardinge (Cataract lathes) had long since sorted the the scenario.
Tom
*** Posted via a free Usenet account fromSorry, Tom!
The new reply could have been " read the f***** manual". Two people have given full details of where to find the information. Sadly, I have two cataracts to go with my two Myfords. I note that in the replies you were noticeable by your absence.
No waffle, sunshine?
N
Steve, Plate is done I just need a shipping address.
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-
Oopps sorry should have been email.
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-
LOL, tetchy eh Norm? Full faith in the "man of dividing plates", John Stevenson, had the pleasure of meeting him recently and a waffler he ain't. I see by latest posts my faith was not in vain. Gidday John.
Tom
*** Posted via a free Usenet account from
Good day Tom, Wondered if you had got back OK, bit of a long walk downhill to where you live.
To the group, Tom was in England a while ago and popped in one Friday afternoon and we had a very good chat only spoilt by having to cut it short as we had prior arrangements that night, collections, deliveries etc.
Always nice to put a face to well respected posts.
-- Regards,
John Stevenson Nottingham, England.
Visit the new Model Engineering adverts page at:-
It seems to be the case that most watchmakers lathes include a 60 hole dividing plate on the back of the drive pulley since it is conveniently divisible by 2; 3; 4 etc. . I'm in the process of making a replacement and hit upon this dividing by 60 problem too.
My 4" lathe has divisions on the front gear of the back gear; but being somewhat old, the 360 circle (the only one divisible by 60) has worn away in places. The procedure recommended to me was to get some
35mm film and use the sprocket hole spacing to make a band with 60 holes which fits round a woodend disc and put this on the back of the mandrel. I've not tried this yet and must confess that I'm tempted to try and borrow a 60t change gear to save the trouble (my lathe is plain so doesn't have changewheels itself).Alan Bain
Hi Alan,
I am not sold on this 35mm film idea - I am constantly trying to improve my precision, and this does not appear to be a step in the right direction.
On the lathe that I use currently I have been thinking of using a gear fitted on an expanding mandrel in the end of the hollow tailstock, 60 would be favourite, but I would have a choice. Its a shame the bull wheel has 75 teeth, if it was 60 then I could use that instead.
I think I have seen indexing holes on a chuck backplate too. That could be handy.
Steve
I'm not too sure of it either (I keep hoping someone else will try it first and tell me if it works or not!); the problem seems to be the space between the first and last holes; it seems that the inter sprocket hole spacing on 35mm film is very accurate; but there is bound to be an error in joining the ends; it would probably be fine if this home made "plate" were to be put onto a worm reduction gear as this would reduce the error by the worm reduction factor; but if I had a 60 to one worm reduction dividing head, then I wouldn't need a 60 hole division plate!
Alan
If you are really *that* desperate, a length of old metal tape measure tacked around the circumference of a plywood disc got me out of trouble on one occasion about 20 years ago!
Could you not get a 'friend' to drill appropriate holes around the circumference of either a chuck body or the rim of a chuck backplate which you can then index with a simple detente?
Alternatively, Hemingway -
Chris Edwards (in deepest Dorset) "....there *must* be an easier way!"
With the greatest respect gents, this method will improve your precision considerably.
The whole point of this method is that it is transforming an accurate, pre-made linear scale into an angular one, by wrapping it around the circumference of a disk.
So all you have to do is to be able to turn a disk to a set circumference (i.e. diameter). You need no measuring equipment whatsoever, just your piece of film and a rough pi.
Cut your film to the number of holes you want (say 120). Cut another piece with one third the number of holes - this gives the approximate diameter of the disk you will require. Make the disk a bit bigger as your pi is size three-and-a-bit.
Mount disk in lathe and turn down until when you wrap the film around it, the ends meet. If they overlap, change to putting-on tool.
How will this improve your precision? Well, because whatever you do on the cross-slide is magnified just over six times on the circumference, you will very quickly get a very good idea of how much you can reliably and repeatably take off. You will also learn the trick of setting-over the top slide so you can improve the resolution of your cut by maybe a factor of 10. You will also learn when to stop cutting and start using other metal removal techniques (polishing/lapping).
And what if the ends don't meet? If the gap is, as some of our trans-atlantic friends like to say, a RCH, what difference does this make to the angular accuracy? Googling shows me that film-hole spacing is 0.187" [-ish], so 120 of these makes 22.440" circumference. Let's assume our RCH is 0.004", giving a disk circumference of 22.444" (disk radius 3.572". Your final division, instead of 6 degrees (0.10472 rad), is 0.10582 rad, between a twentieth and a tenth of a degree big; the other divisions being about one sixtieth of one tenth of a degree small.
Precise enough?
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.