mill a radiused end on a part, or do part circle machining jobs such as rounding the ends of a set of loco con rods
space a row of drilled holes around a pitch circle
Mill a circular slot
Mill two slots at an angle to each other... and so on.
3-3/4" ROTARY TABLE
Even if you own a larger, geared rotary table, you will find this little ungeared Rotary Table useful for small jobs in your vertical milling machine when you want to:
mill a radiused end on a part, or do part circle machining jobs such as rounding the ends of a set of loco con rods
space a row of drilled holes around a pitch circle
Mill a circular slot
Mill two slots at an angle to each other... and so on.
The
base of this little Rotary Table is 4" square, and the
table is 3.75"ø. Or you can scale it up, (or down, for the
ultimate paperweight!*). Whatever size you make it, it’s an
interesting and instructive exercise in machining. Two stops
run in a dovetail slot in the lower part of the table. These can
be set to control how much the table rotates, to suit a given job.
The table is rotated by means of the little knurled
lever, or handle, which you can see on the far right side of the
above photo - you just poke it into one of the 4 holes in the Table's
skirt, and give it 3 or 4 turns to screw it into the thread at the
bottom of the hole, so the lever doesn't suddenly fall out in the
middle of whatever you are doing with it. Then you pull the table
through whatever arc you need on the job you are doing.
Rotating
the table by hand like that might sound a little "home-made",
at first look, but it works very well in practice: the weight of your
arm (10 or 12 pound of soggy flesh!) on the lever seems to soak
up a lot of vibration that might otherwise show up on the job
as an uneven finish from the cutter. In my experience using the
little Rotary Table you see above, the end result is a beautiful
finish on whatever you are making with it.
The table
skirt can be graduated 0-360º, for extra precision - exactly how to
do this to a very professional standard is explained in the
plans. If you choose to engrave yours as you see I did on mine, it'll
look like it came out of the Starrett factory, and you'll be so
pleased with yourself you won't be able to see straight!
The
plans consist of four 8-1/2 x 11 pages of fully dimensioned drawings,
and are accompanied by 29-pages
of detailed and carefully written instructions. I
prepared the drawings and instructions for this
project almost 30 years ago, and have since sold
close to a thousand copies.
* Imagine one of these little guys at about
2-1/2" in diameter, sittin' on your desk as a paper weight!
You can't buy "cool" like that --- but you can make it.
35
pages
US$10, postage paid in the US and Canada, plus applicable tax (Michigan)