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  1. #1
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    Default Tickling up a Spindexer

    A couple of members asked me about a Spindexer. I've been super busy for work, but have managed to sneak a few hours in the workshop here and there and so I thought I'd put the process of fettling one up here as I go through it in case anyone else is interested too. Sorry a couple of photos were put up already in an unrelated post.

    The first thing was to establish a reference I could work from, and eventually this would need to be the spindle, but for now I ground the top and bottom parallel and just tidied the Chinese workmanship up a tad.

    Indexer grinding.jpg

    Next was to tidy up the sides so they can become reference surfaces. I just noticed that I should have the thing in the vice the opposite way around, not important in this case, but thought I'd mention it.

    Indexer milling edges b4.jpg Indexer milling edges after.jpg

    More later

  2. #2
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    I was quite pleased with how accurate this cheap indexer is bored. There's very little runout and the spindle is a nice fit in the bore. This is not a precision piece of equipment, but I thought it had potential to be improved so I measure how parallel the spindle was to the base. Sorry for repeating, I posted these the other day.

    Indexer Before Left.jpg Indexer Before Right.jpg
    The above are actually the back of the spindle, and show a 13 um nod down at the nose, that measuring distance would be around 50 mm I'd guess. The solution is to scrape the base so the spindle is parallel. I normally don't even bother bluing the plate until I have the alignment roughly in the ballpark. Just hack away material until it's getting close then bring that surface in to one plane. No idea whether that's the "correct" way of doing things, but there you go, just how I do it. Mergh, wadda ya do?

    Anyway, below is the result. It repeated consistently on the same reading front to back, and no movement in a 1 um indicator, so I'm calling that puppy roasted.

    Indexer After Left.jpg Indexer after Right.jpg

    Later

  3. #3
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    Ueee is offline Blacksmith, Cabinetmaker, Machinist, Messmaker
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    Hi Pete,
    I think the "norm" is to blue every pass, or take a double scraping pass between blues etc. The main reason i see is so that you don't dig a big hole that takes you longer to scrape out than it takes to get the item trued.....
    13um is not really much, 2 heavy passes should get most of it anyway.
    I'm sure Phil or RC will set us straight.

    Cheers,
    Ew
    1915 17"x50" LeBlond heavy duty Lathe, 24" Queen city shaper, 1970's G Vernier FV.3.TO Universal Mill, 1958 Blohm HFS 6 surface grinder, 1942 Rivett 715 Lathe, 14"x40" Antrac Lathe, Startrite H225 Bandsaw, 1949 Hercus Camelback Drill press, 1947 Holbrook C10 Lathe.

  4. #4
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    Next I'll scrape the sides to also be parallel to the spindle. I figured that would be handy to indicate off when I'm setting this up. I'll mostly use it on the T&C grinder, though expect to make up a base for the surface grinder too.

    I used a precision cube to both hold the indexer when indicating and also to keep it perpendicular to the plate when taking a print. The clamp is intentionally a bit "rubbery" ie compliant and also not tight so the indexer is actually resting on the bottom surface and not being supported by the cube.

    Indexer on cube.jpg

    This is how I go about bringing a surface down that's out, I don't normally write numbers on the casting, but did for the photo. Basically I split the surface up into thirds, and after scraping down to get a decent surface, will give the area that says 3 on it 3 cycles to just one on the low side, then check it again. Once again, I'm not suggesting that's the "correct" way, just how I get it done.

    Indexer side.jpg

    After a bit of mindlessly threatening the casting with a carbide scraper I finished up with this. For some reason I didn't take any "after" photos of the sides. They weren't quite as good as the base, and were more difficult to get consistent readings from (recall it's balancing on quite a small edge), but I'm happy to call them within 2 um, and more likely within 1 um. A slight movement in the clock, but I'm not going to chase fractions of a um!! Always difficult to photograph scraped castings, and if you haven't noticed, I'm no photographer Actually ironically enough I did in fact have an interest in photography, but have precisely zero interest in it in a workshop environment. A crappy iPhone 4 it is then!

    Indexer finished scraping.jpg

    Next I will need to cut the keyway slots.

  5. #5
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    I scraped the casting before milling the slots as it's easier to scrape. However there's a chance the casting will move and I'll need to check that later and fettle it a tad if required. It may not move much front to back anyway, and that's mainly what I'm interested in.

    Indexer milling keyways.jpg

    At least I got the casting in the vice the correct way this time It was more important this time as I didn't want the keys to dip in too much etc. Not a big deal of course, but if you're going to do something ... etc. I finished up indicating the scraped top surface and jacking the casting a little. That's a pretty good vice, and unless I specially made provision for the casting to move within it, the vice will always tend to pull that rear surface square. However I got it "good-n-nuff" for just a couple of keys. However the original ground surfaces are not in perfect alignment with the spindle, so I indicated off my scraped sides (which are in alignment with the spindle) and knocked the vice out of tram slightly to compensate. I was going to go back and grind them in, but I'm a bit pushed for time and they bear no relationship to anything, so possibly won't.

    After a bit of high speed action I got left with this.

    Indexer keyways milled.jpg

    The keys were simply ground down from 1/2" key stock. I like my keys a snug fit, so they were ground appropriately. Then simply counterbored and transfer punched through to the casting which was tapped M5 to accept the socket heads. I was going to reverse spot face the casting while it was in the vice, but the casting is actually reasonably flat at that point so didn't think it was required.

    Indexer keys.jpg

    That's the machine work pretty much done. Now just to get rid of that green paint job

  6. #6
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    Hi Pete, that looks good. Im puzzled by what you meant you you said you had it in the vice the incorrect way. Can only assume you should have had your reference surface against the non moving jaw? That what you meant?

    Thanks for posting. Whats wrong with green btw?

    Simon
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  7. #7
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    G'day Simon, other way around. Normally you'd reference off the fixed jaw, as it should be a right angle with the base. This vice is beautifully made (and for US$3,000 it would want to be!), so everything sits correctly anyway. In this case in fact the quality of the vice made it more difficult as I find on cheaper ones you can fudge things a bit. No chance with this one, and it solidly pulled things square to the jaws every time.

    Green has gone, now replaced with silver so I can pretend it's an expensive Eurotrash accessory

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    Nice vise.... does that have adjustable hydraulic clamping force? If so, how do you adjust it?

    Ray

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    Quote Originally Posted by RayG View Post
    Nice vise.... does that have adjustable hydraulic clamping force? If so, how do you adjust it?

    Ray
    Yes Ray it's adjustable between 20 - 40 kN, the adjustment is made by an allen key, you just dial it to whatever setting you want. You can see the adjuster on the last photo above where I'm counter-boring the keys. It's a beautiful vice, but really a bit large for that machine. If I'm swapping vices/rotary tables/dividing heads/etc a lot I'll often use the much smaller Aciera vices as they're much easier to lift on and off and the keys are a very good fit, so I don't really need to tram anything. I haven't put keys in the Gressel as yet, one of those things on the list but the keyways in the vice are monsters, so it's not just a normal case of a bit of a tickle on the grinder to fit bot sides, and they will need to be milled. IIRC they're 20 mm keyways!

  10. #10
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    Nice job Pete, you were game to go with the double key approach, do they both engage nicely?
    I just have one 5/8" key down the centre of my Spindexer.

    Lex.

  11. #11
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    $3000 for a vice! Crickey what else can it do?

    Cheers

    Simon
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  12. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Techo1 View Post
    Nice job Pete, you were game to go with the double key approach, do they both engage nicely?
    I just have one 5/8" key down the centre of my Spindexer.

    Lex.
    Ha ha, nope! I looked at the Clarkson (which has only one T-slot) and decided I'd just set them at an arbitrary distance apart, about half way across the flats where the hold down bolts go. I needed 2 slots like that so it could be positioned at different distances on the Clarkson's table, and also be reversed. Of course I didn't think to check that the key would clear the outside of the table, and of course it doesn't, by about 2 mm would you believe so I will need to take the outside key out when using it that way around. Not a huge big deal, but by the same token it wouldn't have been the end of the world to just shift them out a tad if I'd thought about it. If I'm using it closer to the wheel (as I did to test it) it doesn't matter. That's probably the way it will go most of the time anyway.

    I baked the paint today, the silver hammertone is a little old now and doesn't set up all that well. I may well do the handle again, but will take another look later. I've been busy fitting the DRO to the lathe, and wanted to get an idea of what I'm up against there so old-spinny has been just sitting there in the oven for the day waiting patiently. It just needs to be tarted up and put back together now. 1/2 hour job i guess.

    Pete

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    Quote Originally Posted by simonl View Post
    $3000 for a vice! Crickey what else can it do?

    Speak Swiss-German

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    Quote Originally Posted by Pete F View Post
    Ha ha, nope! I looked at the Clarkson (which has only one T-slot) and decided I'd just set them at an arbitrary distance apart, about half way across the flats where the hold down bolts go. I needed 2 slots like that so it could be positioned at different distances on the Clarkson's table, and also be reversed. Of course I didn't think to check that the key would clear the outside of the table, and of course it doesn't, by about 2 mm would you believe so I will need to take the outside key out when using it that way around. Not a huge big deal, but by the same token it wouldn't have been the end of the world to just shift them out a tad if I'd thought about it. If I'm using it closer to the wheel (as I did to test it) it doesn't matter. That's probably the way it will go most of the time anyway.

    I baked the paint today, the silver hammertone is a little old now and doesn't set up all that well. I may well do the handle again, but will take another look later. I've been busy fitting the DRO to the lathe, and wanted to get an idea of what I'm up against there so old-spinny has been just sitting there in the oven for the day waiting patiently. It just needs to be tarted up and put back together now. 1/2 hour job i guess.

    Pete

    Right, I thought you were going with a key in each side to engage 2 tee slots at once on the milling machine.

    Lex.

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Techo1 View Post
    Right, I thought you were going with a key in each side to engage 2 tee slots at once on the milling machine.

    Lex.
    No that's what I'd normally do, but have a dividing head for the mill, so this will be used just on the grinders. I think if I was putting this on the mill I'd do as you mentioned, and have one keyway in the centre, provided it was wide enough to span 3 slots, and I doubt it would be. Didn't measure it as it will never see the mill.

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