Need slots on round part indexed, cannot afford indexer.

[epanzella]

Go to Microsoft excel and make a pie chart with 20 things in it. Print it out and glue it to a piece of cardboard, alum or plywood. Not my idea. I saw a guy making gears that way on youtube.

 

[Hawkeye]

Sprockets make good indexing plates. 20- and 40-tooth sprockets are common enough. I like the saw-tooth idea, too.

 

[calstar]

Go to Microsoft excel and make a pie chart with 20 things in it. Print it out and glue it to a piece of cardboard, alum or plywood. Not my idea. I saw a guy making gears that way on youtube.

Nice! As many indexes as one wants, just slice the pie... Brian

 

[projectnut]

Why not just go to e bay and buy a cheap spin indexer. You can purchase one for next to nothing. There are several that use 5C collets for less than it would cost to make a fixture. There's one out there right now with a "buy it now" price of $33.95. There are many others with prices ranging from $35.00 to over $600.00.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/5C-PRECISIO...6?pt=BI_Tool_Work_Holding&hash=item519988c20c

I've had a Phase II spin indexer for years and used it successfully for dozens of operations just like what you are proposing. I'm all for making jigs and fixtures. But why go through the expense and time to make a specialized tool when you can buy something that can be used for a number of operations for less.

 

[digiex_chris]

why buy something when you can spend 10x the money and 100x the time making it yourself?

I started out thinking I was going to build an engine, but all I've done is spend 2 years building tools heh

 

[John Hasler]

For some of us $54 ($34+$20 shipping) is quite a ways from nothing.

 

[digiex_chris]

Plus my time is nearly worthless, by choice even

 

[projectnut]

why buy something when you can spend 10x the money and 100x the time making it yourself?

I started out thinking I was going to build an engine, but all I've done is spend 2 years building tools heh

The problem with spending 10 times the money and 100X times the time is you still have a single purpose tool. Next time you'll need to do the same thing all over again, and again, and again on to infinity. At some point you'll realize that you could have spent $50.00 once and saved several hundred over the lifetime of the tool. You'll have more versatility and more opportunity create yet unknown parts. Even buying the $15.00 saw blade or the $10.00 gear is money spent that in all likelihood will be for a 1 time fixture. There is a point of diminishing returns.

 

[digiex_chris]

Its mostly a joke. Once I've built something myself I give myself permission to buy the next one. Good learning experience. Good perspective for why things cost what they do. But anyway, building things has to be because you like doing it because, at least in my area (and with a hobby perspective), and with our access to the global economy with the internet, its always cheaper to just go do some more overtime at work and buy something with the proceeds rather than making it. But work isn't nearly as interesting.

 

[digiex_chris]

That said, sometimes I build instead of buy because the options on the market aren't exactly what I want instead of enjoyment. And Sometimes the job needs to happen now and the store is closed or I can't afford it till next month and I have lots of scrap to repurpose.