Cedge,
Yes I see your point about having it outside the end cover. That is easily doable with just a slightly longer arbor. Cover or no cover is not really an issue for me. The longer studs and the knurled nuts that retain the index attachment also serve to hold the end cover in place so no more using the socket head bolts that originally held it on. Ans yes of course you could use the change gears to produce a set of dedicated index plates going so far as to make an individual plate for each index, 2,3,4,5,6,7,8.........etc and this would eliminate counting holes or gear teeth when doing an indexing operation. I guess if you do loads of it then this might be worth the effort. In actual fact I have a CNC 4th axis project on the back burner so for me at least , at some point this will all be redundant. I can easily use the CNC mill to produce an index plate with any desired index spacing so it really is a simple operation here in my shop. I already have 2 complete sets of mini lathe change gears so this is just the easy convenient and cheap way to go for me. I always take the path of least effort!
Cheers
Gerald