Want to spiral flute round stock with manual mill/drill. This possible?

[ridgeway]

Honestly....I dont know the size. Its a Rong Fu RF45 round column with power down feed.

 

[markknx]

This was just done in a recent issue of Machinist Workshop or Home Shop Machinist. Author of the article was doing it on some Triumph 650cc rocker arm shafts. It looked great and now I want to have that done on my Triumph shafts. Let me know if you do it. I'd be interested in someone doing it for me. The article was called " A temporary 4th axis on the mill" I was literally with in the past 2 issues of one of those publications. I'll do some digging around to see if I can still find it.

Yes I saw that also but dammed if I can find it now

 

[hman]

Yes I saw that also but dammed if I can find it now

It's the cover article (Pages 4 thru 9) of the August/September issue of Machinist's Workshop.

The author describes using sprockets and chain to get the rotary coupling.

 

[docn8as]

the OLDE TYME way w/ out gearing & sprockets was done BETWEEN CEnters., no dividing head used ...just 2 centers .....w/ a dog attached . to the shaft ......an inclined plane was mounted on the mill base...... the dog rode up the inclined plane as the table moved & rotated the shaft between centers ,while the spindle cut the helix.....calculate the length & rise of the inclined plane vs the rotation desired.
this was long near forgotten technique used on metal planers for slow helices...
best wishes
doc

 

[xalky]

the OLDE TYME way w/ out gearing & sprockets was done BETWEEN CEnters., no dividing head used ...just 2 centers .....w/ a dog attached . to the shaft ......an inclined plane was mounted on the mill base...... the dog rode up the inclined plane as the table moved & rotated the shaft between centers ,while the spindle cut the helix.....calculate the length & rise of the inclined plane vs the rotation desired.
this was long near forgotten technique used on metal planers for slow helices...
best wishes
doc

It took me a few seconds to get what you were saying, but I get it now. You could probably only get about 120 degrees of rotation out of it though, that's what I'm thinking, unless I'm missing something.

Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

 

[benmychree]

The pic you posted appears to be a rotary table. The way I understand it is a "universal dividing head" has a shaft or some sort that comes out of the backside of the dividing head. This in turn will allow you to connect the unit to the x axis leadscrew to drive the head when the table is trammed. I'm sure the complex part is calculating the rotation ratio and dividing the circumference of the round stock to obtain the desired flute.

Find a copy of Brown & Sharpe's a Practical Treatise on milling and milling machines" Tables are shown for different spiral leads and pictures of actual set ups; many other practical items of info. and tables as well.

 

[ed_h]

That article in Machinist Workshop was mine. Here is a link to my web page that the article was based on:

http://bullfire.net/4th_Axis/4th_Axis.html

The technique might work for what you want.

Ed

 

[ridgeway]

That article in Machinist Workshop was mine. Here is a link to my web page that the article was based on:

http://bullfire.net/4th_Axis/4th_Axis.html

The technique might work for what you want.

Ed

Ed...very nice work! Thanks for posting, very interesting.

 

[xalky]

Nice article Ed, and nice method and write up. Heres a cheap indexer to accomplish what Ed has done. http://www.tools4cheap.net/proddetail.php?prod=5cspin

That's what I'm talking about...cheap is good!)

 

[machinist18]

You could use the setup that Pineyfolks showed and if your mill doesn't have a tilting head, use a ball endmill instead of a radius cutter and it will work.