4" RT setup for Lathe

[epanzella]

I want to set up my 4 inch rotary table on my lathe. I currently have a vice on my milling attachment (pictured). I could mount the RT on the milling attachment by swapping back and forth with the vice. However, I would much prefer to permanently mount it on another angle bracket like the one my mill slide is attached to. It would be permanently centered on the spindle centerline and would not have the ability to go up and down, the only travel available would be crossfeed and longitudinal feed. My question is do I really need up and down? I can can achieve any radius with just the crossfeed. As you may have gathered, I mill on the lathe only and never had a rotary table before.

 

[Asm109]

That sounds like a plan that would work out well. Once you get the center of the RT on the spindle axis height you are golden.

 

[brino]

My question is do I really need up and down?

No, you don't.
A 90 degree turn of the rotary table and then your cross feed "looks like" up/down.
-brino

 

[British Steel]

If you're considering gear cutting with a cutter in the lathe spindle/chuck, it'll be a lot easier if you can rotate the RT so its axis is parallel with the X-axis (cross feed) and raise/lower the RT for infeed (if you need to progressively make the cut - smallish gears can probably be made with a single pass)

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[epanzella]

Thanks, all, that was what I was hoping to hear. As far as gear cutting, I think my best option would be to set up a vertical arbor on my mill slide and use a fly cutter or involute cutter like that Australian guy does on youtube.