Hey Ted,

Very neat idea. When I first looked at 3.jpg, I thought that the
riser piece looked like some type of non-metallic material, and I was
a bit surprised that a "slippery" material would be used. But then I
looked at the aluminum chips in the photo, saw they were the identical
color as the riser, and assumed that the riser must also be aluminum.
Not so when I read the .txt lines! Has this been a problem at all?

I have pretty much the same generic indexer too, and I had a few times
when I either couldn't tighten the 5C enough to grip the work, or more
often could not get it to release. The knurled screw towards the back
of the housing seemed designed to just apply a tension or braking
action, rather than grip and lock the shaft firmly. The only thing
that seemed to have a large enough radius to grip was the index wheel
itself, and if you apply too much pressure, it slips too. So, I
marked the shaft from through the center of the tension screw, took it
apart and made a depression with a 3/8" drill to create a "detent"
hole which is really quite shallow, reassembled and put a brass 1/4-20
knurled head screw with rounded off end in through the tension knob.
Now, to tighten and release the 5C collet, I just rotate to that
detent and run the brass screw in. No problem now. And when the
screw is retracted a few turns, the original tension screw works
exactly as it did before, because it "runs" outboard of the detent
mark. Oh, and I did put a locate scribe mark outboard and at the
collet end so I could find it easy to do the "lock". Hmmmm... it was
a while ago I did this, so another Oh, and I made the detent in
such a position that the handle for the spindex was generally going to
rotate "down" to tighten it, so there is less chance of the whole
spindex moving when you tighten it. Of course, there is a slight
variation with different collets and the material in it, but you'll
note that most clamping occurs in a relatively close range, about 1/4
turn or less.

One other little tip, is that all around the shop I keep a whole bunch
of that "typing correction fluid" in those little bottles with the
built-in brush, or much better and handier yet, the "pen type". I
try to always carry one of those in my shirt pocket with the clip-on
screwdriver and the pencil. Great for marking and writing on dark
surfaces. Anyway, that applies to the index wheel, in that I can mark
the spaces off before-hand, and it wipes off easily with just the
slightest bit of acetone on a rag.

Take care.

Brian Lawson,
Bothwell, Ontario.

ps...convention on a lathe has it that the cross-feed is X and there
is no Y (unless you are using a milling attachment) but the carriage
feed is Z. Compound would be either not described, or called W.
Rotation of the compound in its "hole" would be I. Or is it K? I
forget. I don't know what the spindex motion would be!?! All this is
arguable of course, and a whole other thread!! VBG
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On Wed, 14 Jan 2004 19:01:50 -0500, "Backlash"
wrote:

Ted, that's a damn good idea of using the indexer on the lathe!

RJ

"Ted Edwards" wrote in message
...
Backlash wrote:

Get yourself one of those $50 indexers, clamp it at an upward angle in a
vertical mill, and you can cut the teeth and the relief at the same
time,
with a little imagination. Index, cut, index, cut. I had always thought
I
had an exclusive on these things. (pout)

I bought one with my 3-in-1 about ten years ago. One of the most used
accessories.

I made a block the same shape as the rectangular base of my spin index
and of such a height that the axis of the spin index is "exactly" the
same height of the table as the lathe axis. This alows me to remove the
compound from the table and mount the spin index on the block. I can
then put the cutter in the lathe chuck, orient the spin index
conveniently and use the x-y feed to do the cutting.

You can see it in use in this mode at

http://www.metalworking.com/dropbox/_2002_retired_files/Fluted_Knob3.jpg

Ted