TOS Dividing Head

[Rob.Wilson]

Hi Darren 

On another note, I spent some time in the workshop tonight and made the MT5/5C collet adapter. Woohoo punch the air   -... mighty pleased with it too. Just drop it in the spindle under it's own weight and you can't get the bugger it again as it's stuck fast.

If only you saw how I did it you'd wonder it works at all    

      

Cheers Rob

[Darren]

Oh Ok, since you asked so nicely 

To make the 5MT/5C adapter I decided to use the Taper turning Attachment for cutting the 5MT and the compound slide for the 5C

First job was to set the taper turning attachment to 5MT which is 1° 30' 26". Using the TTA angle gauge to set somewhere near is OK for starters, but to set up truly a 5MT tapered item is needed to run a dial gauge along.
As I don't have any 5MT tooling I was left with using the dividing head spindle itself. I wasn't to sure about this as it's rather big and long and stability could be an issue.



I needn't have worried,  The 8" four jaw is a sturdy beast and coped rather well. After centering the spindle for runout the dial gauge is run up and down the internal taper and the TTA is set to run true. Both settings were managed with no discernible movement on my tenths DTI.
Sounds easy dunnit .. Nothing could be further from the triuth, it quite literally took me far, far, longer to set this up than the rest of the whole job.


Now to start attacking some material. In this case another lump of EN24 (a hard tool steel that loves chewing up your carbide) Again dial in as true as can be done with such a rough bar. The center was drilled out to one inch.



And then bored to depth for the 5C collet body. I seriously need to get me some bigger boring bars, this is a 16mm shank lathe tool. Not ideal but it worked.



The compound was set over to 10deg and the 5C taper was cut whilst testing with a sharpie along the way. Though I didn't need any adjustments.



Rotating center in the tailstock onto a 5C collet held in the workpiece to steady it. Skimmed off the surface rust and partially part at the final length to give a runout area whilst cutting the taper.



Taper attachment engaged and the 5MT taper was cut.



Edges chamfered, parted off and here we are, finished.




Some outdoor posing shots ... just cos it was sunny 







Now I just need to make a matching drawbar to the 5C collet ...

[75Plus]

   

Can't decide which is better, the machining or the photography !!

Joe

[John Stevenson]

Good news and bad news.

Good news is I have found a spare Elliott dividing plate,

Bad news is it's the one you have,

Bastard, another flat battery in the car park of life..........................

John S.

[rleete]

Nice repair work.  I like the custom (and replacable) pin idea.

[Rob.Wilson]

Nicely done Darren 

Cheers Rob

[Trion]

Very nicely done

[Darren]

Thanks for the kind comments chaps, but the machines deserve all the credit. I'm just the bumbling button pusher 

John, thanks for taking the time to have a look, 'aint that always the way. I've seen a couple on the bay and againg the same one as I already have 
Incidentally I have seen other 9 hole plates that have different numbers of holes? So I guess I need to be selective and get the right one when it shows up.

[John Stevenson]

The plate / numbers you want is on the top of that Elliott chart.

.

[Darren]

Thanks John, I did spot that 

What are the different plates/numbers for? I see other plates with numbers that are not on that Elliot chart. Is it just a case that you can achieve the same result with different combination's?

I do realise that I need the right one to match the one I have, just inquiring about the ones that don't match

[Darren]

Having had some time to ponder over what to do with the TOS DH chuck that came with a backplate that didn't fit   This is what I came up with.

BTW, Matthew my 16yr old son did all the machining, all of it. (under my supervision of course)

The chuck as it was ..



We decided to clamp the chuck to a 25mm bar held in the lathe collet and machine the back register true



A fair bit of cleaning up was done, but I won't bore you with all the pictures of this  

An intermediate plate was machined from some very rusty 20mm plate. Cutting it down and making it round took far longer than machining the registers and drilling the nine mounting holes on the milling machine using the RT. The register for the old backplate was cut and the backplate was machined true as it had a few knocks that needed taking out. That was done on the other lathe as we didn't want to disturb the work so far on the main lathe. I suppose we should have done the backplate first, but hey what does a guy have two lathes for  



Backplate fitted and trued up



Three jaw mounted on the lathe with soft jaws which where trued up. Now we could turn the chuck around and true the face of the chuck to the backplate register by taking a skim off the front face.



That's it, all looking much nicer now and more importantly everything is true, at 25mm at least  

[AdeV]

Nice work Darren 

Assuming you can make/buy soft jaws for the TOS, you'll be able to get it concentric at all dimensions, no?

[madjackghengis]

As stated previously this is not the correct plate for this DH. The TOS plates have 4 screws and most others inc this one seem to have 3.

So, off to drill four holes then. Set up on the RT clamped down with a socket and bolt  The plate seemed to be made from cast steel, anyone know if this is normal?



Holes were countersunk and all seems to fit quite nicely. You may note that I've breached two of the existing holes. Well not the holes just the countersunk areas. Try as I might this was the best spacing I could come up with. Next time perhaps I'll only make/use two holes as that should be enough.



Now with the plate fitted I needed a spacer to stop the cranking arm pressing against the index plate shaft.... confused?  all will be come clear ..

A bit of bar stock .... well you do like pictures don't you 



The bush from within the bar stock



Fitted



Not easy to see but the bush now holds the indexing arm off the plate mandrel.




I have not been too pleased with my pictures lately, most of them seem to be out of focus. Today I changed lenses and this one seems to give better results. Bit of a sod to use though as it won't focus any nearer than 0.85m. The other one got quite close. It probably doesn't help that it's quite dark in the workshop (photographically speaking) and lit only by florescent tubes.
Can you see any difference between this post pictures and the previous ones?

Hi Darren, as far as the plates, they tend to be cast steel or cast iron, I think it's because they chip instead of denting, so they are less likely to close up a hole by a ding.  As far as spacing, what you need is to make a set of arms to control the exposed number of holes you need to use, which will take up that space between the plate and the pin holder.  I tried to get a picture from my photo bucket, but don't seem to be able to make a copy and bring it over.  The sector arms allow you to set up how many holes you will be using in the plate, and are held on with a "C" clip, in the groove in the spigot right behind your cranking arm.  If I could attach a picture I would.  You will need the sector arms, but they're easy to make, I made mine out of some scrap aluminum, but they'd be better off out of either some steel or maybe some hard brass.  I'm still learning how to use this damned computer and all its wonderful features that make everything better.  mad jack

[Darren]

Thanks Jack, that makes sense 

I will get around to the fingers, and a drawbar for the 5C collets. You will get to grips with the comp, if I can (sort of) anyone can