dividing head

[turbocat]

good evening fellas,
i need some help identifying this dividing head . there is only one number, the one in the photo. thanks.

[Richard_W]

Is that a #50 taper in the index head?

The only index head that I have seen with a 50 taper was built by K & T.

?????

Richard W.

[Jaxian]

Not sure which one that is but it does look like a NMTB style taper. Whether is is a 50 or 40 there is no way to tell without a size reference. If it's 50 it will be 2.75" at the gauge line, if it's a 40 it will be 1.75. Large difference so easy to tell.

As far as that helping with the brand all the companies that made horizontal mills in the past had NMTB 50 taper versions. Cincinnati, K&T, Ellis, B&S also I think though they might all have been B&S proprietary taper (heck I have two Cincinnati DH's that are B&S taper). Bunch of others, pretty much anything that came on one of the big machines.

The weird thing is that unit looks really small to have a NMTB 50 on it. Doesn't seem to be nearly enough beef for a holder that size. So maybe it's a 40. Just guessing. One thing that can eliminate K&T or Cincinnati really quick is whether the dividing plate is double sided. Meaning the holes don't go all the way through and have different numbers on each side. Only those two and one other company I can think of did that double sided thing. Made for VERY expensive plates when new but neither of those companies cared about stuff like that very much.

Sorry I couldn't be of more help.

P.S. maybe a clear picture of it just sitting on it's bottom pulled back a bit to show the whole unit might help.

[turbocat]

thanks for the replys. i took a few more pictures and some measurements. the bottle is a pint container for reference. as it sits it is 1" small hole and 1.75 the bigger hole. 8.75 high, 6.5" wide and 7.5" in depth. also the hole plate is double sided. the inner numbers on the plate begin with 43 and decrease.

[Jaxian]

Well if it's 1.75" then its a NMTB 40 taper. The hole in back is just to allow longer things to pass through. The fact that it has a double sided dividing plate and 11 holes per side matches a Cincinnati. Also the dividing crank arm looks exactly the same. See photo of two Cincinnati DH's. Weird thing is obviously yours looks nothing like those other two. They both rotate so they can be set at any angle from less than 0 (horizontal) to past 90 (vertical). Yours is set up to either be on vertical or horizontal and no where in between.

I started looking through Cincinnati accessory catalogs I had and the only thing that looked kind of close was a Gear Cutting Attachment from one of their instructional manuals on how to cut gears. But it had the plate at an angle and other odd features. Although like yours the picture of one didn't have a drive setup like all the universal DH's have to drive them to cut helical gears. Then again the caption on the photo said the Gear Cutting Attachment was for cutting spur gears only so I guess it wouldn't need one.

So my guess is you have a Cincinnati something or other. Gear cutter or basic divider or indexer that is probably part of some larger assembly. Of maybe it is a unit off a production machine meant to do one job as well as possible. They made a lot of weird custom stuff. And if the plate fell off it at some point it can be hard to tell, lots of old Cincinnati stuff doesn't have the name cast in.

I say just figure out the ratio, 40:1, 90:1 etc, make yourself some dividing tables or just google some for that ratio and match them up to the number of holes in the plate and go ahead and use it if it all seems tight.

Sorry I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was from.

EDIT: Just had another thought. Cincinnati made a ton of different type of grinders. Tool and Cutter Grinders, Centerless Grinders, standard type Center Grinders. This could easily be to say mount and index a tool on a Cutter Grinder table so they could like grind the flutes or other features. That would explain the lack of need for other angles and features. Just a guess though, I don't know anything about their grinders.

[turbocat]

thanks for your time and effort...both of you. now i need to know what kind of tooling a novice should start with. lathe type chucks or collets? any suggestions? this will be used on a bridgeport vert. mill, all manual.

[Jaxian]

A chuck is always easiest to use but there can be accuracy issues. This shouldn't be an issue to you at this point, even cheaper stuff should be more than good enough. Drawing a blank on 40 taper 3 jaw chucks atm, not sure I have seen one. They obviously exist as there is a 50 taper chuck on the DH in the above picture. Just hate you to have to fabricate an adapter plate as a starter project since it should be pretty accurate. There is however a thread in this or the lathe sub forum with people discussing how to go about making one.

Of course if it is 40 taper, and it seems it is, then I would get on the Bay and pick up a ER collet chuck, it will look like the ones in my other thread below except for ER and not TG as they are much more popular. http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/vie ... 43&t=99253 . Just bolt one of those in there and buy a cheap set of ER collets of the size range you want and that should cover most of the stuff pretty easily. It just won't do that odd sized piece where a 3 jaw would just tighten and go. Or really big things like if you needed to drill holes in a 4" disc a chuck with reversible jaws is pretty nice.

Also it occurred to me another reason your dividing head/ indexer is so lean and compact and that it may be for a tool grinder. They have very narrow tables and since they aren't taking huge cuts don't require a lot of meat in the indexer. Of course then why use 40 taper as that's pretty beefy but again Cincinnati, if that's who made it, did lots of interesting things. Heck they even made 60 taper machines.

Hopefully this has been of some help to you. I figure as long as you count out the ratio and get some tables off the internet and the unit is mechanically sound you are good to go as soon as you decide on a workholding solution.

Brand won't matter at all, just use it. Have fun, nothing like the first time you try to divide something into a weird number of spaces and get all the turns and holes needed to make it work and finish and it is perfect. It almost seems like magic. Looks pretty damn neat too and you can say you did it without a computer (although a DH is a type of basic mechanical computer, input the right number of rotations and holes and it outputs the right distance).

[Richard_W]

If you have a #40 taper buy a holder for a large face mill with a 40 taper. This gives you a mounting surface for an adapter plate to mount a flat back 3 jaw or 4 jaw chuck. Make the adapter plate to fit the 40 taper and the other side to fit the flat back chuck.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Ericson-40-Tape ... 3a9093bb4c

A flat back 6" chuck

http://www.ebay.com/itm/6-3-JAW-SELF-CE ... 2a3eabf6da

Richard W.

[turbocat]

thanks for all the help fellas. ebay, here i come.