Spin indexer and gears

H

Hukshawn

Forum Guest
Register Today
I'm having a dilemma over a rotary table.
I'm looking for a 6" rotary table for Christmas but everything is out of budget. There was one on Amazon that would have been perfect, came with a tail stock and dividing plates but it sold out and is no longer available to Canada. All the rest are only available to the states and I have no way to get it shipped to Canada.
I really need something to make gears.
So, spin index... Possible to do a reasonable range of gears or no? Most are 5C collet, I believe, I can rig up a tail stock and turn a gear on a shaft, but the degrees... My understanding is they are in 5 deg intervals.

Anyone have experience? I need advice. My wife is asking me to make a decision.
 
Mine are 1° increments and 5C collet.
 
I think it would be viable.
The indexer gives a positive stop and there is a hand screw that tightens against the spindle of the spin index. Sort of locks it in place:)
I think most spin indexes are capable of 1 degree, so any number that will divide evenly into 360 can be done with the stock index (360/18=20)---all others would need the extra discs made (360/26=13.846) so to make a gear with 26 teeth you would need a disc with 26 holes.
Hope i made some sense with that:big grin:

You are really cutting spaces to create teeth.
 
Am I going to regret the purchase in 3 weeks after I pull my hair out and ruin several years blanks...? Is that likely?

I feel like I am settling for a spin indexer.
 
I have a Phase II with 1º increments and a tapered pin for indexing. You could cut gears but would be limited as to the number of teeth. The options are 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 24, 30, 36, 40, 45, 60, 72, 90, 120, 180, and 360. (There's also 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 but they're not really practical.)

It is possible to modify a standard indexer by making a special plate that would have the correct spacing for other gears as John pointed out. A disk with 78 holes would make 13, 26, 39, and 78 tooth gears; a disk with 56 holes would make 14, 28, & 56 tooth gears; etc. It's not really practical to try to cover a large range of gears.

Another problem could be rigidity. The gear would be mounted to a shaft which fit a 5C collet, maximum diameter 1.125" Any larger gear blanks would be flexing with the cutting forces. You could create a fixture to support the blank better. though.
 
Stick with game for a while and you will end up getting a dividing head and a spin indexer. In other words, get the spin indexer now and use it. The spin indexer is not going to do everything for you, so in a while you'll got a dividing head. You will still find that the spin indexer is usefull. You will still discover that the spin indexer and the dividing head does not cover all the bases, so you will talk yourself into getting a rotary table. That will be great, and after a while yet another project will come along that will require yet another purchase.

Be warned, there is always another tool or attachment. Get the spin indexer, they are handy enough. They are pretty light duty, which is fine, go easy and you can do good work with them.

My photo is of a bunch of change gears that I made. I used a dividing head. There is quite a range of tooth counts - the spin indexer would not have worked. The dividing head is a pretty big lump of iron, I use the spin indexer more than the dividing head, because the SI is little and handy for small stuff.
 
Stick with game for a while and you will end up getting a dividing head and a spin indexer. In other words, get the spin indexer now and use it. The spin indexer is not going to do everything for you, so in a while you'll got a dividing head. You will still find that the spin indexer is usefull. You will still discover that the spin indexer and the dividing head does not cover all the bases, so you will talk yourself into getting a rotary table. That will be great, and after a while yet another project will come along that will require yet another purchase.

Be warned, there is always another tool or attachment. Get the spin indexer, they are handy enough. They are pretty light duty, which is fine, go easy and you can do good work with them.

My photo is of a bunch of change gears that I made. I used a dividing head. There is quite a range of tooth counts - the spin indexer would not have worked. The dividing head is a pretty big lump of iron, I use the spin indexer more than the dividing head, because the SI is little and handy for small stuff.

This is likely more of what I needed to hear. All the gears I'll be making are brass, and likely with a fly style cutter... I would be adding a 5" chuck to the spindle of the indexer and a tail stock. So some added rigity there. I can't afford a dividing head. So the choices are a rotary table that will chew my budget, or a spin indexer that will leave room for any extra tooling necessary. But I wasn't sure if it would work.
I have igaging dro's, they don't have the extra features that the bigger dro's have.

It sounds like The indexer will do the same as a rotary table as far as gears go, at a much cheaper price. I don't know what the teeth counts are at the moment. I'd have to go inspec them all and check the many lists shown. I'm sure I could figure out a way to get it to cut an odd number of teeth not listed.
 
Back
Top