tapered slots

im in the process of making a 24 stop dividing head thingy, (dont know what theyre are called), its a 5" chuck mounted to revolve on a heavy angle plate to be used vertical or horizontal, behind the chuck is a flange with 24 tapered slots cut into which a tapered stop locates, tapered milling cutters are big bucks so im looking for alternatives to buying one? any ideas??

How are you cutting the slots. If you cut them on a dividing head you can rough them out square firstly, then offset the cutter and rotate the plate by a few degrees and cut the first set of side angles. Repeat the operation but opposite offset and angle to complete the angled slots for plunger.

David

Geoff

Consider cutting parallel slots but use a tapered plunger key to index in the slot, even with the tapered slots and key it is best to lock the spindle to mill the part being held.

Emgee

Use a cheap gear cutter? That will give you a nice slot!  Grind up a suitable single point tool and 'fly cut'?  I think it's a spin indexer by the way.

Paul.

Edited By Paul Kemp on 18/04/2021 23:40:25

The plate with the slots is called a masking plate. Used for rapid indexing.

Why slots? Drill parallel sides holes and have tapered pin.

I wanted to make some special tee nuts for the compound on the Smart & Brown model A and a friend of the museum who did cutter grinding put the required taper on the end of a 1/2" four flute endmill. If you have a suitable donor cutter, then a small engineering firm could probably modify one for you cheaper than a special.

Emgee's suggestion of parallel slots with a tapered plunger would work very well if the plunger included angle was about 2 degrees.