Rotary Table/Dividing head

[SPiN Racing]

Heya gang,

I know there have been a lot of threads regarding rotary tables verses Dividing heads. And I can truly see the need for both.

I currently have a project on the Quasi back burner to make a recumbent bicycle for my wife who is recovering (still) from multiple knee surgeries.

Part of this recumbent project is making wheel hubs for the front wheels. They will be disk brake hubs, that have a standard number of spokes, but they will have a large, high quality bearing race in the front. Standard bicycle hubs have enough meat for standard bicycle bearings and small diameter axles supported on both sides. The recumbent will have the wheels mounted on a spindle arrangement, so will need thicker stronger axles that I will need to turn up, and hence need larger stronger bearings.

So.... dividing head would work well for drilling all the spokes. But I woud have a ton more uses at this point for a rotary table, with a removable 3 or 4 jaw chuck.
I have heard mention of rotary tables having dividing plates on them.. but am a bit fuzzy on wether you can simply buy a 12" rotary table.. or even 10, or 8 inch.. and stick the plates on the crank and go from there.
 
I am still searching, and reading... and thoughts on if Im searching for a 5 leaf clover would be appreciated! 

[mklotz]

If you don't anticipate doing a lot of dividing tasks, a rotary table is, IMO, a more versatile tool for the home shop.

If you're the careful sort, you don't really need the hole plates to divide on a rotary table.  Just use the angular divisions on the handwheel.  As an example, here's the settings you would need to do thirteen divisions.

Code: [Select]

Number of divisions = 13

DIVISION      degdec     deg     min     sec
       0      0.0000       0       0       0
       1     27.6923      27      41      32
       2     55.3846      55      23       5
       3     83.0769      83       4      37
       4    110.7692     110      46       9
       5    138.4615     138      27      42
       6    166.1538     166       9      14
       7    193.8462     193      50      46
       8    221.5385     221      32      18
       9    249.2308     249      13      51
      10    276.9231     276      55      23
      11    304.6154     304      36      55
      12    332.3077     332      18      28
      13    360.0000       0       0       0

Download the ROTARY program from my page and it will compute the required settings for any number of divisions.

[Bryan]

Spin, some rotabs can be fitted with dividing plates. Vertex is one. They are well regarded and not too expensive.

[SPiN Racing]

Thanks for the info.... Looks like there are a handful of them that come with the Dividing plates. But after reading about Bogs motorized indexer.. I might wanna just go that route.
Gonna see if the product is available here in the states. ANd or what the conversion ends up being if it isnt....