Dividing head or rotary indexer?

[pontiac428]

Will a dividing head do something a rotary indexer cant? I am really torn between the two styles.

If you have neither and are deciding which to buy first, the RT gives you more room for work offering more fixturing versatility, which is a big deal. The dividing head gives more positional versatility, since it is a tilt table as well, and dividing plates have their simplicity over the RT. You can use the dividing head and a tailstock as centers too. Lots of position options, but you have much less space for fixturing work. To answer your question as honestly as possible, I think a rotary table is a better place to start, and a dividing head is something you can buy when you realize you need one of those too.

 

[3strucking]

I have a very nice 10" horizontal RT so I think I will go with the dividing head. I would probably be fine with either but the dividing head is a tool I don't have.

 

[pontiac428]

I don't know if you've picked one out yet, but I bought a Chinesium copy of the B&S #0 dividing head about two years ago. The first thing I did was take it apart for a cleaning and deburring. While I was in there, I noticed the cage for the bearing was a little bit crumpled. I found a FAG replacement bearing NOS on ebay and replaced it. I gotta say, all of the machining, dovetails, and threading were good on the import head. It's not as fine in the details or as silky as a real professional unit, but it's decent. It came with a chuck, faceplate, drive dog, centers, and tailstock in addition to its set of index plates (wasn't sure I'd find that used). The B&S design is simple to work with. If you have a knee mill, the vertical position is useful, but for a bench mill it's too tall. I mostly use it for milling flats or flutes and putting hole patterns in things. It is a manual 5th axis, after all.