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$20 power slotter for my lathe!

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Dean W:
Now, that's one slick direct indexer. 
You can get nylon or plastic gears pretty cheap, which should open up a
lot of different tooth counts/indexing spaces for your work.

Good thinking, John.  Looks neat, too.

Dean

fluxcored:
Wow, this is fantastic!! I'm currently working towards cutting a 32T change gear and your setup solves a lot of issues for me.

Does your setup cope with cutting steel?? I'm assuming the work piece in the chuck is ali. Not a problem really because I plan my gear to be brass/bronze.

Dean, exactly the reason why I'm currently scavenging old printers for plastic gears.

John Hill:
Hi Fluxcored.

It does cut steel but it is really hard to keep the carriage feed slow and steady enough as (at least with my lathe) it is not possible to use power feed without the spindle turning.

John

andyf:
That looks a great idea, John. I've got a spare Chinese drill press which I'm eyeing up.....
A couple of questions:
Do you think there would be any virtue in shortening the column (and the bar which holds the cutter) to improve rigidity? Not so much that you can't see the cutter, of course.
The clearance between my quill and the head casting is, to put it politely, generous. Your idea doesn't require the quill to move up and down as when drilling, so I assume you have fixed it to the head casting - was this with a slit and a pinch bolt, epoxy, or some other cunning ploy?

Andy

John Hill:
Andy
I left the column full height so that the majority of the forces are on the lower bearing.

No, I didnt modify the drill head in any way.

The real issue with rigidity, as far as I can see, is the lower bracket which is a simple adaptation of the original drill table clamp. The bracket is much longer than it needs to be and would be better if it was shorter, the clearance required to the column is only the radius of the cutters to be used.  However I made it that long to line up with the drill spindle.

What would be better would be to make two rigid brackets (shorter of course) and use two spur gears to drive it with the drill. That would improve rigidity and reverse the rotation of the cutter shaft which would make feeding easier.

As it stands, the thing I would like to improve most is the convenience of feeding at a slow and steady rate.

BTW, I have since trimmed the corners off that bit of ugly angle iron on the lower bracket! :coffee:

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