Rotary Table Quest

Haven't checked how high the table is, when in the Horizontal mode.

When I checked my Vertex HV6, with the table Vertical, the centre height was exactly 4 inches from the table of the mill.

It is almost always used with Division Plates, and with a Tailstock to provide support for gear cutting.

My Tailstock centre is hardened. With a 2MT blank arbor, suitably bored, the RT and the Tailstock can be aligned with regard to the Tee slots in the Mill table, and the Tailstock centre aligned in the vertical plane.

Howard

They do dividing plates, but they are horizontal only, I'm not trying to sell him a Hofmann rotary table, just pointing out the second hand market often has better buys, even smaller 6" RT's of a more industrial design can be found cheaper than new hobby equipment, if hobby gear is out of stock, no harm in looking at what's available on the used market?

Nothing against S/H just making the OP aware that most of the secondhand offerings are either Far eastern H/V types or industrial horizontal only ( what e-bay showed anyway). Chances of being able to find a set of plates for an old out of production R/T will be slim as probably been separated years ago and then if you also need to use it vertically you will have to hope you can fit it onto a small mill with angle plates etc. or buy another that can be mounted vertically.

Industry probably got by with horizontal tables as they no doubt had a universal or horizontal machine in the shop that could get to the sides of the work and always easier to mount work on a flat surface anyway. The small benchtop machine user has to do it all with the vertical spindle so needs a compact R/T that can be used in both planes and even mounted at an angle as I have had to do in the past..

Not wishing to be argumentative ... just mentioning another approach:

The lathe can provide an excellent alternative to mounting a rotary table ‘vertically’

[i.e. with its rotational axis horizontal]

For some users, it may be easier to add dividing and milling facilities to the lathe, and use the milling machine only with a low-profile rotary table.

MichaelG.

Just in case it should be of interest to anyone with a small mill and is considering a rotary table here are the numbers from my mill with a 5 inch r/t.

Mill table to spindle 280mm

Top face of r/t above mill table 70mm

Face of r/t to spindle 210mm , (mounted horizontal)

Centre of r/t to spindle 137mm, (mounted vertical)

So it's not too bad for a small mill I haven't been caught out yet though I have been close with it in the vertical.

Ron

Chronos have the SOBA HV6 rotary table back in stock Roger...

A direct copy from their current advertising blurb.

”one revolution of the hand wheel = 4′ of rotation of the table”

Doesn’t quite compute with other claims, of course, but does demonstrate that one should not believe everything as advertised...🙂

I think they meant 4 degrees, rather than 4 minutes.

.

Well spotted

I wonder how the user manual goes about explaining that

MichaelG.

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Ref.

OUR TABLE IS SUPPLIED WITH AN 8 PAGE FULL MANUAL – NOT AVAILABLE FROM OTHER SUPPLIERS!