Need a Dial Made or Just scribed and marked

[Billh50]

I need to have a dial made that is 1.25 OD X .40 Long with a .750 Hole through. I can make the blank but have no way to scribe or mark right now. Here is what I am looking for.

 

[David S]

Hi Bill, I hope others with better equipment can come on board.

I think I could do the major and minor scribes, but not the numbers.

David

 

[Billh50]

If I had stamps small enough I could stamp them in a fixture. But I don't.

 

[pdentrem]

You can use your lathe to scribe the lines. Turn your threading tool on its side and scratch in the lines using a stop and a simple dividing head that you can make up using cardboard and a pointer. As for the numbers a small stamp set is fairly cheap but you have to get it first and that can take time. I did mention how I made mine in the topic where I made a New top slide for my Atlas lathe for my lathe. Also mentioned how to stamp the numbers on another topic after that.
http://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/replacement-compound-slide-for-atlas-10.708/

Pierre

 

[Billh50]

Pierre,
I thought of that but if I make a mistake because the pointer moved or the cardboard is not marked evenly, then I will scrap the part and I don't have a lot of bar stock to waste.
One of the items I plan on making after is an indexing attachment for my lathe that I have all drawn up. Also I do not have small enough stamps for the numbers.
But I appreciate the thought.

 

[pdentrem]

You could do like I did and scribe the outside edge of the chuck first. That was what I had done. If you were closer, as in this side of the border, I would send you my stamps. Look at amazon for some sets. I have these in 2 different sizes. I see some cheaper ones on the site as well.
Pierre

 

[Billh50]

How did you get the scribe lines evenly spaced ?

 

[pdentrem]

I printed a sheet of paper with lines representing the number of division on the dial. I carefulled measure the circumference of the chuck and added the thickness of the paper as it does make a difference. I used a cad program to array the lines down the sheet. Since the 5" chuck is longer than a sheet of paper I cut a couple strips and wrapped the chuck. I then scribed the backing plate of the chuck where each line needed to be. I ended up with a 100 divisions. I took a piece of wire and used that as a pointer. I then carefully scribed each line on the dial using a sharp pointed tool laid on its side. Moving the carriage back and forth to make a division. They only have to be shallow like .005" deep. Holding the spindle from spinning was the real issue. I used the back gear and pinched the belt to stop it from turning.

Hope this helps.
Pierre

 

[David S]

Bill I also did something sort of like Pierre. I printed a big circular dial and stuck it to a piece of thin aluminum and locked it to the back of the spindle with a draw bar and flattened the end of a piece of coat hanger to make a sharp pointer. I locked the spindle sort of like a
prony brake wrapping a piece of red belt around the chuck and hanging a weight on it, also using the indexing pin to lock the spindle when it lined up.







Here I am engraving the lines in a blank held in the chuck with my unimat milling arrangement mounted on the cross slide.

David

 

[Billh50]

One thing I forgot to mention. My lathe does not lock up well. It's a Homier Mini-lathe.
One of the things I want to make for it is an indexer on the back end that will also lock the spindle in place. Maybe I should just make the indexer. I can buy a number set of 1.5mm number stamps cheap enough on ebay.