Richard J Kinch wrote:
KN writes:


Since I know I will need a rotary table for some of my projects, my
question is can a rotary table be mounted vertically to a mini-lathe?


I happen to have the cheap Enco spin indexer, and the minilathe. Here is
what I find:

What is possible if the cross-slide is removed, leaving only the carriage
base? The top of the dovetail on the minilathe cross-slide, to the spindle
axis, is about 2.6 inches. The bottom of the spin indexer to the collet
axis is about 2.75 inches. So apparently you could remove the cross slide
from the minilathe carriage, and bolt on the indexer, with the minilathe
axis about 0.15 inches below the indexer axis. So as long as your bolt
circle radiuses are about 0.15 or more, this ought to work. You'd put the
drill bit in the chuck, and hold and index the work in the indexer, and
feed the drill with the carriage wheel.

As long as the spindle axis is with about 1/2" of the indexer CL, you
move the cross slide horizontally to get to the radius you need, then
lock it down and index away. Am I missing something?

For most applications you could mount it directly to the carriage, after
removing the cross slide. Or fashion a mount to the bed ways, perhaps
from a tailpost base. The indexer has enough axial travel that you could
use that instead of carriage travel to feed the work, for many
applications including that of the OP.