indexed grinding tool.

[refinery mike]

I made this little tool for making small knobs, custom bolt heads and other small parts with multiple sides. Now this is not going to make parts for rocket ships but for most bolts, finger screws, fluted knobs etc. it is more than accurate enough and it will do the job before you can set up the mill to do the job.
Basicly it is a small indexing head that pivots on a hinge. it is clamped to a sander table and then a suitable round shape is pushed up into the moving sander. the adjustable stop sets each facet equally deep and the indexing head puts them equally spaced. The axle is simply a 1/2 CRS bar turned down to accept the gear on one side and center drilled and tapped on the other. The speed of the tool comes from the fact that when you wish to rotate the axle you simply loosen the clamp bolt, and pull the axle toward the gear, rotate it and push it back on to the indexing pin at the appropriate place. tighten the clamp bolt again and grind down to the stop. If you are using a belt sander it is easy to change to finer belts and polish the part while everything is still set up. You can also set the tool up on a disk sander,or a lapidary lapping plate, (the most accurate) . for a fluted knob you can clamp it to a drill press table and hinge the part into a sanding drum. the size of the drum dictating the size of the flutes. I made the tool first with simple bolts and nuts and then used the tool to make the bronze parts. it would look better with matching style parts but i just had to try out different types. I hope this is clear, feel free to ask questions, I am unclear in some area. keep the axle simple because you will have to make separate ones for each thread size.

[Harold_V]

Is anyone besides me unable to open the pictures posted above?

Harold

[John Evans]

They open just fine for me.
John

[Davo J]

I can't open them.

Dave

[bjmh46]

pics show up fine here!

Firefox 3.6

Bob

[stevec]

Show up fine here too.

[hammermill]

crome works fine also. nice tool you built there.

[Jerry_H]

They Sow up fine on my MAC too.

Jerry

[dly31]

My computer with IE8 only shows placeholders after clicking on the links.

[pacrat]

Big white page, little red X in corner. Not much to see.

[Harold_V]

Big white page, little red X in corner. Not much to see.

Yep! That's what I get, but I'm interested in seeing his creation. Maybe he'll send me the pics (by email) and I can re-post them, giving him credit.
How about it, refinery mike?

If you're willing, I'll send you an email, then you can reply. (I have access to your email address).

Harold

[Torch]

I can see the pictures (both the thumbnails in the post and the larger version when they are clicked).

(They are hosted on chaski.org: http://www.chaski.org/homemachinist/dow ... &mode=view)