Dividing head

I'm looking to purchase a dividing head. looking at the net the only ones that are affordable are Vevor. has anybody purchased one of these ? Are they any good ?

Peter,

I purchased a Vertex BS1 and I am pleased with it. It did not come with a chuck but I knew that and was happy with that. It was about £500 with VAT.

I have made a set of 12 DP change gears for my Denham Lathe. I also made a 127 hole plate in order to make a 127 tooth gear wheel for my lathe.

Make sure that you want a dividing head rather than an indexing head that can do 2,3,4,6and 12 divisions. The Vertex BS1 can do indexing as well for speed.

John

Hi Peter, you will have to give us more details of your needs before we can advise you of the best course of action, Vevor are one of many suppliers of dividing heads, all copies of the original American made Browne & Sharp item. BS0 is the smallest & then BS1, also Vertex are/used to be a better quality item compared to the no name brands but that may have changed.

There are lots of these around under different brand names, all probably from the same factory in China.

I have one with a 5" chuck, it seems reasonably well made considering the low price, the only thing I found was with the backlash adjustment which needed fiddling with every time I used it.

Here is the test report that came wit it

Edited By vic newey on 04/12/2022 11:48:05

Edited By vic newey on 04/12/2022 11:58:21

It appears that Vevor sell three models of dividing head.

If you know what you want, go ahead and buy one.

If you do not know, you should treat the words and numbers on Vevor's pages as guidelines rather than statements of truth. There are lots of numbers on each page, some of which contradict each other (centre height) and some of which are incorrectly directed (have you ever seen a dividing head tailstock with a Morse taper?).

One factor that could influence your purchase decision is the channel through which the piece is sold: directly from Vevor's website, via Amazon or via eBay. If there is a problem with it, which of the three offers the easiest return path?

The trouble with a BS0 is that the mounting length is more than you think.

I can use mine to make a 6" bull gear on a Centec 2A directly in the 4" chuck, but ran out of table trying to cut a 3/4" gear. That said I didn't have the drive dog.

I still have the carton mine arrived in, very well packed with styrene inserts etc, the box is all in English telling the contents but no brand name, that will be only be found on the booklet inside due to multiple brands using the same supplier.

Edit:  I just looked at my amazon account, brand is VEVOR BS-0 with 5" chuck , I bought it in Oct 2020 @ £215  so current price on there is £226 so hardly gone up considering.

Edited By vic newey on 04/12/2022 12:52:11

Edited By vic newey on 04/12/2022 12:54:00

F W I W, i use a Vertex HV6 Rotary table, since it can be used in horizontal or vertical mode.

With Division Plates, it allows a large, but not complete, range of divisions to be made.

In horizontal mode, it provides more headroom under the spindle.

HTH

Howard

Hi Guy's

I do have a 6" Vertex rotary table. My initial job was to make a 1,750" diameter 32 tooth gear wheel. The gear wheel has a 10' helix angle which a rotary table could not achieve other than other than doing a Heath Robinson clamping job.

Do these generic indexing plates allow you to do 32 tooth wheels ?

Are you asking of the rotary table ones or the dividing head ones?

The dividing head is a copy of the Browne and Sharpe one and the plates supplied will be the same as with that head. The newer Vertex was also a B&S copy and instructions for that, which includes the hole circles of supplied plates, are available (https://www.chronos.ltd.uk/wp-content/uploads/BS0-DIVIDING-HEAD-MANUAL-SCTOOLS.pdf).

For 32 divisons on a 40:1 head, you need 40/32 or 5/4 of a turn or 1 1/4. Any hole plate that is a multiple of 4 will do the job. At worst, count the holes shown in the photos of the Vevor plates. Hint, try the second-but-innermost circle of the plate that is mounted on the machine.

If you are asking of the rotary table, the 6" Vertex one is 90:1, so you would need 90/32 or 45/16 or 2 13/16. Hence, you need a 16 hole plate.

You state the helix angle as 10 minutes. Do you mean 10 degrees? Rather than a dodgy clamping setup, make a sub plate that bolts properly to the dividing head and then clamp the assembly to the mill table at the correct angle.

I have the BS0 Vevor wih 5" chuck - currently £224 with tailstock and three division plates, which is excellent value imho. The spring washer which bears on the sector arms is a bit rubbish, and needed some bending and filing off of sharp bits, and I stripped the head down and adjusted the bearings - I can't remember whether it has a separate adjustment for the worm backlash, but anyway, it was quite easy to get it working as near as perfectly as my dubious skills require.

If you want to make something with a helix don't you need a fully universal dividing head? That's one with the extra drive shaft which the BS0 doesn't have normally. then you can link rotation to the table travel.

I have a 80 mm Saba rotary table. It was cheap (€ 60,--) and a peace of junk but I have used it for many years. I use the rotary table mainly for milling gears and hex nuts.

I build one (40 mm) that fits in my vice so it is ready to use in seconds. It is controlled by a Nema17 stepper (1:30 gear ratio) and locked pneumatically. I used 3 mm balls to make 45° contact angle bearings so the spindle is free of play. I fitted an ER32 collet holder for clamping 20 mm bars. The runout measured at the collet taper is 0.015 mm.

Once it is ready (documentation and video) I will publish a video and the (freecad) drawings. I estimate it will take about 40 hours to make one.

I have an Alan timmins designed dividing head. I bought it at the Midlands exhibition. You can get the castings from Blackgates Engineering. http://www.blackgates.co.uk/wkequip.html

David

That looks useful, David

The Blackgates web-site being a little clunky, I am linking the page that offers a downloadable catalogue: **LINK**

http://www.blackgates.co.uk/index.html

MichaelG.

I got the Vevor with the 100mm chuck and think it is incredible value for money. How do they do it at the price?

I became fixated on the backlash and got it down to 0.1 degrees, worst case. Self-defeating because I cannot resist taking up the slop with a quick twist of the chuck before locking the spindle and it would probably be easier to feel 1 degree than 0.1 degree